What is the book of Revelation in the Bible? 🌅

What is the book of Revelation in the Bible? Sounds like a weird question. Everyone knows what it is, don’t they? But how many of you have read and really figured out the opening sections: the Prologue and the Greeting? For that matter, how many realize there’s no “s” on the end of Revelation? It’s one revelation, not a whole bunch of them.

The Book of Revelation, often misunderstood, is an unveiling of divine truths rather than a mere foretelling of apocalyptic events. It opens with a prologue and greeting that emphasize the importance of truly reading and understanding its contents, as well as clarifying common misconceptions.

The adjacent image is like a modern-day hi-tech version of the opening verses in Revelation.

I’ve been to the cave in Patmos where it’s believed John received the vision from Jesus. Except for the actual cave having a very low ceiling – I couldn’t stand upright – this could totally have been displayed on the walls of the cave.

As we go through the book, try to imagine what each scene would look like on the cave walls. Not to figure out it out, but to get the mindset of someone back then, trying to grasp the awesome power of what they read, and what John saw in the vision from Jesus.

This image is an MS Copilot AI rendering of the opening verses of Revelation. We can’t know exactly what John saw, only that he described it as faithfully as he could. The imagery isn’t the focus—the message is. These visions remind us of the vastness of God and the limits of our understanding. So in this series, we’re paying attention to the relationships: the ones that existed, the ones that failed, and the ones that should have been there. Relationships between people, and between people and God. Not to criticize, but to learn how to prepare ourselves and guide others with wisdom and hope.

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So, in the words of Tinker Bell on the Disney Fantasyland ride – Here we go!

Is there a difference between revelation, apocalypse, and The Greek word “apokalypsis” (ἀποκάλυψις)?

Before we go anywhere else, let’s see what this book really is. In order to do that, we need to look at one of its common names, Revelation (or the Book of Revelation, or The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, or other similar names).

Next, if we look at the Greek word in Revelation that we read as “revelation”, we see “apokalypsis”(ἀποκάλυψις). You probably think it means apocalypse, as in a cataclysmic series of events that will bring about the end of the world, or something like what we see in disaster movies. But that’s not correct. It means, wait for it, revelation.

Therefore, while the apocalypse, as we know it today, is the events in the Book of Revelation, it is neither the title nor the word in the first verse. As we’ll soon see, this is God’s Revelation, not ours. Therefore, it’s not our place to change His words to fit what we want them to be. Rather, it’s up to us to determine, with the help of the Holy Spirit, what those words meant when God gave them to us.

Just that realization alone should change the way we look at the Book of Revelation. We’ve turned Revelation into entertainment — a fantasy, even a dystopian one. It’s dystopian because it reflects the future we imagine, shaped by our fears and assumptions. But that dystopia is our invention, and it distracts us from the future God is actually revealing.

The revelation begins

Prologue – Revelation

1. Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

It’s kinda boring, right? Obvious. Who needs to read this?

Uh – we all need to read this! Let me start at the end of the paragraph – did you get that far? – and we’ll see why it’s so important.

Blessed are those who read this

Seriously? We’re blessed just by reading this?

I’ve heard people say this is the only place where the Bible says we’re blessed by reading this book.

That’s not quite true. Actually, it’s not even close. But then, for those who skim the words, that’s probably what you’ll pick up on. After all, according to various studies, the words we pay the most attention to in any given paragraph or sentence are the ones at the beginning and end of the segment.

And so, we read verse 3, and maybe our mind gets this: Blessed is the one who reads … the time is near.

Then we think, oh gosh, the time is near. Better read this quickly. Gotta hurry. Especially since we’re blessed merely by reading! That’s awesome!

It’s also not true. It’s in the pile of Revelation misconceptions along with the title of this book being Revelations.

And that’s why we need to read it. And I mean really, truly read it. Because the mere reading of this book being a blessing is no more true than merely saying “I believe” leads to salvation. If you want to check out that one, please read, carefully, Are we supposed to Believe God, Believe in God or Follow God? Just the title should get us to notice we need to do more than say, “I believe”. Even more than believe in. It’s the following part, or at least our desire and best effort to follow Jesus that truly matters.

It’s the same here with Revelation. It’s our desire and best effort to read, believe in what it says, and then live accordingly that matters.

But, before we go any deeper into the fallacy of thinking that reading Revelation is all that’s required, let’s go back to the beginning and see exactly what it is that we’re reading.

Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ

Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.

Let’s begin with a simple question. What is a revelation? Is it a book? A fancy religious word?

Here’s what dictionary.com says about the word revelation. Note, although it includes religious meanings, the top 2 uses are not inherently religious at all.

Obviously, we’re into the 4th definition. And yet, we’re also in definition three territory as well. #4 is a specific instance of #3. So, maybe we should turn to a non-secular definition/interpretation to see what it’s really about.

However, before we do that, we need to look at something else, since there’s so much packed into the Greek word we read as “Revelation” when it’s used in this sense.

The revelation of/from Jesus, given by God, made known to John via an Angel of God

The revelation of/from Jesus, given by God, made known to John via an Angel of God. No wonder we don’t read all this. The sentence hasn’t even ended yet and we’ve almost got enough people for a pick-up game of basketball! Who are they and how did they get involved in this? Can’t God just “tell” us something without us needing a scorecard and program with player bios in it?

And yet, we do things like watch baseball, with 9 players from each team on the field. And American football, with 11 players on the field at any given time, plus lots of subs, offense and defense players, special teams, and third-string players who only get on the field when multiple people are injured.

When we include the practice squad, that’s up to 69 players on each team. Now, multiply those 69 players by 32 teams and we have 2,208 players! And that doesn’t even include the ones brought in when someone gets injured and someone’s brought in during the season. Plus, players get traded from one team to another.

But we, at least many of you, manage to keep track of every one of them, along with their statistics.

So, why can’t we keep track of a relatively few people in Revelation? It’s not that many.

But here’s something a bit mind-blowing for those who can’t keep track of everyone in the Bible, myself included, and have to keep looking them up.

There are two books that contain short bio’s/information on all the men and women in the Bible. I asked an AI engine about those two books: do you know how many people are included in “all the men of the Bible” and in “all the women of the Bible”? Here’s what I got back:

There’s a “mere” 3,300″ people. A lot, for most of us. But for people who can keep track of players and stats for every baseball and football player, season after season, this isn’t hard at all.

It begs a question. What are our priorities? I’m old enough and have spent enough time in the digital world to claim I could never remember lists of things, like with history, and have spent much of my life in IT long before it became a household item to say I learned how to remember where to find things, but I often cannot remember what those things are. Which is true. It’s what I’ve done. But still, it says something about my priorities. I’m just not sure, after all these decades, that an old dog can be taught a new trick that it’s always failed at. But still, … priorities?

Unraveling the path of the Revelation from God to us

No matter what you’ve decided about your ability to keep lots of people straight, let’s see what happened with this Revelation.

Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ …

Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

There’s a whole lot in that verse. Let’s break it down, one piece at a time.

John, who testifies to everything he saw

Let’s start with someone each of us knows. The person we see in the mirror. Going backwards is often a good idea, since it gives a known starting point. In this case, ourselves.

The first piece of the path we examine is: … to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw …

Who is John testifying to? Well, initially it was people living back then. But it’s also (potentially) everyone who lived since then, and everyone who will be alive before “The End” happens. Obviously, that includes us.

We also see it comes to us from John. Yes, there was a long time in between John writing those words and you reading them. And yes, a whole lot of people were involved in getting those words to you. For this moment, that includes me, since you’re reading my site. And yet, it’s still John’s testimony. And in this moment, it’s his testimony being given to you, the reader – and maybe to someone you’re reading to.

By the way. In case there’s any question, John is the John who was a disciple of Jesus. Here’s a bit about John, extracted from All The Men In The Bible:

The Man Whom Jesus Loved

• John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the fisherman who became the beloved disciple, The Apostle of Love.
• This younger brother of James has the rare distinction of being known as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” The original of his name means, “whom Jehovah loves” and John’s experience corresponded to his name. From the many references to this honored disciple we can gather these facts:
  • His godly parents were probably cousins of Christ, and John was their youngest son.
  • His mother followed Christ, ministered unto Him, was at the Cross and among those who went to anoint the body of Christ with sweet spices.
  • His father was a fisherman owning his own vessel and prosperous enough to hire servants.  John himself was also a successful fisherman.
  • He was called to discipleship while plying his nets.
  • He was one of the select triumvirate, Christ’s inner cabinet of three, Peter and James being the other two.
  • He was treated by Christ with greater familiarity than the others enjoyed.
  • He sat next to Christ at the Last Supper.
  • He was intrusted with the care of the mother of Jesus.
  • He died when he was almost one hundred years of age.
• He wrote the gospel and three epistles bearing his name, and also the Book of Revelation. How true are Wesley’s words of John the Beloved:
  • A Caesar’s title less my envy moves
    Than to be styled the man whom Jesus loves;
    What charms, what beauties in his face did shine
    Reflected ever from the face divine.

From manifold references in the four gospels, the Acts and Revelation, the preacher can develop these traits in John’s character: his natural energy (Mark 3:17); his intolerance (Mark 9:38); his vindictiveness (Luke 9:54); his ambition (Mark 10:35-37); his eagerness to learn (John 13:23; I John 2:9); his sympathy (John 19:26); his love (1 John 4:7-21).

Maybe you noticed, there’s nothing in anything we’re read to indicate that this is “John’s” revelation. Yes, John is the author of the book named Revelation. But it’s not his revelation. It’s Jesus’ revelation.

Today, that may be a distinction that’s not noticed, or even no longer known about. It comes down to one word in that excerpt on John from “All the Men in the Bible”.

One word – Intrust or Entrust – is it that important?

He was intrusted with the care of the mother of Jesus.

Yes, this one statement is about John taking care of Jesus’ mother, Mary. But it’s also indicative of many things Jesus “left” for His disciples, and therefore, today, to us.

Unfortunately, intrusted is a word that’s considered archaic today. It’s no longer used. And on those occasions when we read it, that means we may have lost the intent of the author. Here’s something from rephrasely.com on the difference between entrust and intrust. It’s so not used that Google even calls out “intrust” as a spelling error.

Entrust means to give a task, responsibility, or authority to someone else.
Intrust means to place something in someone else’s care or possession.

You see, there’s a difference between caring for someone (like Mary) or something (like the revelation that was given to John). More on that after one more look at the two words. Well, maybe you don’t see. I didn’t. Not at first. So, here’s more on the difference between entrust and intrust.

Since the word intrust is now considered archaic, no longer used, I searched for more information to be sure the distinction above is correct. Given so many sources with varying info, I went to Copilot AI to answer this question for me: “rephrasely.com says: Entrust means to give a task, responsibility, or authority to someone else. intrust means to place something in someone else’s care or possession. Is this distinction wrong, or is it just part of what was lost when intrust was used less and eventually became archaic?”

Given that it will come back with common usage info from various sites on the internet, it’s reasonable to expect to get what most people think to be true. When it comes to word usage, what most people think, right or wrong, really is what we’re after. So, here’s the reply:

And there it is. John was given care over the revelation he received, but he was not given authority over it. It’s a very important difference. Unfortunately, it’s one that’s largely lost on us today—unless we stop long enough to look it up. And even then, we may not fully grasp it, because the word “care” itself has been hollowed out. What once meant personal devotion and responsibility has been reduced to a legal minimum standard, as in “reasonable care.” That shift says more about us than we realize.

“What is the book of Revelation in the Bible?” Continues

I often write about how God is God, and we aren’t, no matter what we’d like to think. Realizing that this is God’s revelation to John, and not just John’s revelation is huge. It means what God wants it to mean. It doesn’t mean what we want it to mean.

Therefore, when we try to figure out the message, we need to remember the path this message took to get to us – and then acknowledge that it’s not from any human, even if he’s considered a Saint by some denominations, but from God. It’s the same thing for anything else in the Bible. It’s given by God to people.

And while we have care over it, like translating it, teaching it, understanding it, it’s all according to God’s intent. God’s message. God’s plan. We steward it; we don’t shape it.

With that in mind, the next segment of the series, “Revelation: A book of hope through relationship,” will look at the rest of the opening verses and explore questions like:

• who is “the angel”?
• Who is meant by ‘him”, “his”, and “he”?
• Is this a revelation of Jesus – or a revelation from Jesus?
• Are we really blessed just by reading the Book of Revelation?
  and
• A summary of what we’ve seen and learned about the last book of the Bible and the last days of the earth as is now exists.