Introduction to Revelation

We begin our third season with a new host, Dr. Alexander Stewart, Dean of Faculty, Vice President of Academic Services, and Professor of New Testament at Gateway Seminary. In this season, Tyler and Dr. Stewart will analyze the book of Revelation by working their way through Dr. Stewart's book entitled, "Reading the Book of Revelation: Five Principles for Interpretation", and then reading through Revelation.

In episode one, they introduce the first principle; the purpose of visions. It can be easy while reading Revelation to become distracted by the grand imagery, so what are readers actually supposed to take away from the apocalyptic visions in this book?

Creators and Guests

Host

Alex Stewart

Dean to the Faculty & Professor of New Testament Studies at Gateway Seminary

Host

Tyler Sanders

Tyler is director of communications at Gateway Seminary.

Producer

Courtney McCaa

Digital Media Specialist

What is The Study Podcast?

The Study Podcast is an in-depth look at the Bible with Dr. Paul Wegner and Dr. Alex Stewart.

Tyler Sanders 0:00
My name is Tyler Sanders. I'm hosting this podcast on Revelation. Across from me is Dr Alex Stewart. He's the Vice President of Academic Affairs, our dean, dean of the faculty, and a New Testament professor at Gateway Seminary. So why don't we start off with learning a little bit about you. Why don't you tell us where you came from before you were at Gateway?

Dr. Stewart 0:20
Sure. So I spent almost nine years at Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands. So that was a fantastic experience. I served as a New Testament professor, teaching Greek and exegesis and hermeneutics, and then also as the academic dean. And that was the bridge over to Gateway Seminary in the role of academic dean here.

Tyler Sanders 0:38
Let's get a little bit of your academic background too. So what kind of things have you studied like for your doctoral degrees?

Dr. Stewart 0:45
Yeah. So the PhD was with Dr. David Allan Black at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and it was on the book Revelation. And there, though I explored lots of things as one does in a PhD program. So Second Temple Judaism, I loved exploring that. Developing a love for the primary sources and the original languages. That was fostered in me at Southeastern and so I had a fantastic time there. And then over the years, I've developed different research interests in, as I mentioned, second temple Judaism, GrecoRoman philosophy and backgrounds, moral philosophy, a lot of archeological and epigraphic material culture research, I've been doing the past couple years as well in Western Asia Minor, which is similar...it's relevant to the book Revelation, because of the geographical area. And then I am working on another research project, currently at KU Leuven, looking at divine violence. And so some of the moral and ethical questions raised by divine violence and judgment. Particularly though, how divine violence was thought of in the first century by Jews, particularly Jews in the diaspora, Philo Josephus, and also in the mainstreams of Greco Roman thinking, with Platonism, Neoplatonism, stoicism, Epicureanism. And so that's been sort of the past few years, the focus of research. And it is relevant to Revelation, because there's a lot about judgment in Revelation.

Tyler Sanders 2:00
Yeah, right, that's interesting. I want to get to that actually, because you also have a book that came out recently on Revelation, and having read through a bit of it, there's some interesting things in there about just the theme that I think would be kind of fascinating. But before we get there, I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about why you're interested in Revelation. Like, was there something that confused you? Is it being driven by, like, I don't understand this? Or is it just because its important to the rest of the Bible? What brings you into it?

Dr. Stewart 2:33
Yeah, so that's a great question from...like, most Christians, I avoided the book of Revelation for most of my life. So, you have Christians that could either obsess over Revelation and what comes across as sort of an unhealthy and unbalanced way. That's their thing, prophecy, and they're always wanting to talk to you about it, and it sometimes could end up being unhealthy. And then there's most Christians, I think, tend to avoid it because they know it's complicated. They know it's difficult. They know there's different ideas about it and interpretations. So they assume, well, Jesus and Paul is good enough. Revelation, leave that for the experts. So that was largely my approach to it. You know, I used to make the joke about 'panmillennialist', you know, 'it'll all pan out in the end', and everyone laughs. But that's the excuse to not actually study Revelation. And that's how it functioned in my life for a long time. And as a PhD student, you have to define your topic. What are you going to research on? And I had developed this interest in judgment, and judgment passages and how for two reasons; one is, I sensed the trend or movement in the church to avoid judgment, to avoid any idea of God's judgment or of hell, because it's uncomfortable. And it seems mean and it offends people.

Tyler Sanders 3:45
Even like interpersonally in the church.

Dr. Stewart 3:47
Oh, in our churches, our pastors, yeah. Very few pastors have the courage to speak boldly about divine judgment and God's judgment. And so I was sensing that internally. And then externally, from nonChristian scholars in the broader academy, there's a lot of critique of Christianity, as a religion of violence. And this goes back for a number of years now, particularly motivated recently by literary studies and critical theory in literary studies, where everything could be deconstructed. Everything could be undermined, and divine violence is a particularly easy target. You know, that God would inflict judgment on anyone. Seems like a morally and ethically problematic thing to do. And so on the internally, I saw Christians and pastors shying away from discussion of God's judgement. And externally, it was being leveraged as a regular way to attack Christianity and undermine Christianity. That was my initial interest. And then from there, I was looking a little bit at what passages to study, what author, what book in the Bible? And I had to finally decide between Jude and Revelation. And Jude has a lot about judgment as well, and it's much smaller. One chapter, verses 22. And what turned the tide, actually, or helped me with that final decision, was reading more. So I read Richard Malcolm's little book of theology of the book Revelation. It's fantastic. It's not long, it's an fairly accessible book. And it just, it unlocked a few things for me, where I saw the beauty and the power and the theological coherence of Revelation in a fresh way. That was also very exciting. So that sort of pushed me over the edge towards Revelation, and then worked on the dissertation from there.

Tyler Sanders 5:24
Now in this book, Reading the Book of Revelation, it's five principles for interpretation you put in there. And I love the title of the first one you have. The main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing. So I was wondering if you could tell us what the main thing is, by telling us what the main thing is not. I feel like everyone comes to the book of Revelation with these ideas and a lot of imagery. So what is not the main thing?

Dr. Stewart 5:52
Yeah, so the first principle, as you're talking about, I lay out five principles for reading the book Revelation. The first one is, focus on the original purpose of the visions. And so that's the main thing. The original purpose. So to get there by saying, what is it not...well, it's not sort of a systematic theology compendium of doctrine. So it's not that. It's not a detailed timeline of future events. It's not a shattered puzzle of fragments of future events that the clever among us could put together. It's not that. And so the original purpose of the book is really what I try to unpack in that chapter and guide us in our reading. So if we understand what the main purpose of the book is, you know the original purpose of the visions, that'll guide us as we interpret individual visions, as well. Keeping that main purpose in mind. That's sort of what it's not.

Tyler Sanders 5:53
Yeah. Well, and I think that brings up an interesting question, because there's a lot of visions, a lot of really vivid imagery in Revelation. And there's a question of...there's almost like two levels-there's probably more-but there's like multiple levels of interpreting that we're doing here when we're reading the book of Revelation. So how much like historical context, background do you think is necessary for someone who's just going to pick up the Bible and start reading Revelation? Do they need to know a lot about the context? Is it possible to kind of get into it and pull a lot of good out of it without that?

Dr. Stewart 7:21
That is a great question. So as Christians and as Baptists, we're committed largely to the perspicuity of Scripture. That's a big word. It means that Scripture is understandable, like through the Holy Spirit at work in us, guiding us, interpretation, we can understand Scripture. And then a corollary of that is scripture interpreting scripture. That is, we read Scripture as a whole that helps us interpret individual parts. So we have lots of confidence, as Christians, in our ability to interpret Scripture. And Revelation is one of the books that puts that to the test, probably more than any other. I mean, there are some Old Testament books that could challenge that idea, but Revelation challenges it. And there is important background information that's helpful. In at least two areas. One is the Old Testament itself. So Revelation alludes to the Old Testament all throughout in many ways, and is building on and is interpreting Old Testament passages, or reinterpreting and guiding us in a reading of the Old Testament prophets. So it is very hard to read Revelation if you're trying to read it, apart from the Old Testament. And then also the original cultural, historical background. And so Revelation, sometimes people miss this, it's a fairly obvious point but it's easy to miss, it's a letter. And so it's written to these specific churches, and so that genre. But it's written to specific people at a specific place and time, at a specific point in history for a specific purpose. It does ground it in history. So the more we could understand about the original author and the original hearers and understand why this book made sense to them and how it was expected to make sense to them. That is important. It's important to understand that and ground our readings in the first century and the original author and the original hearers. And the immediate takeaway of that principle, understanding it is a letter, so the genre is written to these specific churches at a specific time, is that proposed interpretations that would have been irrelevant to the first readers are less likely to be correct. And so if I have some interpretation and some vision that would have been nonsensical or irrelevant, or would not even have crossed the minds of the original hearers, doesn't mean it's impossible, and that's where some people push back and say God's Spirit could have been revealing things. Apache attack helicopters and tanks. It's like...well, it's possible. Theoretically, it's possible, but it's not probable. It's not likely, because this was meant to communicate and be impactful and make a difference and be understood by the first readers. And so that's one of the practical takeaways and interpretation of grounding these visions in the first century. And our interpretations of them as much as possible, and things that would have been understandable in the first century.

Tyler Sanders 9:59
Well, I'd like to get into the actual principle here. Because there's a couple important things in there that I think will give people a good grounding, at least, so they can start reading Revelation well. But one of the words that I saw in there that I thought was really powerful was "overcome". So before we get into it, here's my big picture question, and then we should get into the details, "overcome" that feels like a specific kind of hopeful word. Do you think Revelation is a hopeful book?

Dr. Stewart 10:35
Oh, yeah, that's a great question, and I would take it two ways. One is, though I think the way you're asking is personally hopeful. So is it hopeful for me as an individual believer? And then I think you could also think about, is it optimistic for humanity in general? So we'll read Revelation and see a lot of visions of judgment. And the general takeaway seems to be quite pessimistic. You know visions of decreation. That do culminate in a recreation at the end. And so there's sort of those two ways I could respond to your question about the hopefulness. But the overcoming language by itself, yeah it is very hopeful because it assumes, or it lets us know as readers, we can overcome. We're expected to overcome. We're called to overcome, and this book is helping to enable us to overcome. So I think it gives the immediate idea that we can overcome, but there's a negative side to that, because to overcome means that there's an obstacle or there's a challenge. There's a difficulty. If there's no challenges or difficulty, there's no need to overcome anything. And so there is a hopefulness to the imagery of gaining the victory or winning or overcoming, but it also implies challenges and obstacles and difficulties. And that fits reality in the first century and all through human history. And then the other side, about the hopefulness for humanity, there is a lot of judgment, but Revelation is more hopeful than many people realize. And so getting ahead of ourselves maybe a bit, but chapter 11, there's a vision where many people do fear God and give Him glory. There seems to be this turning of many people towards God. In chapter 21, the kings of the earth are bringing their glory into the New Jerusalem. And then chapter 22, the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. And so there is a, I think, a very optimistic conclusion. It's not universalism. Now, some people go that route and try to suggest that Revelation is pointing toward universalism. It's certainly not that. There are those who are excluded from New Jerusalem. But there's also a very positive, culminating vision of the witness of God's people combined with God's judgment leads people to repentance. And so the nations are caught in the middle right now. So the revelation, all the visions, point the nations as being in the middle. So they're being deceived by the dragon and the beast. They're being misled. They're being overcome in all sorts of different ways, but they're also receiving the witness of God's people, and the confidence that Revelation gives them in these visions, is that witness will be effective. You know, not for everyone, but it's not as pessimistic as many people think,

Tyler Sanders 12:58
Yeah, yeah. You have five words that are connected to...I guess there are five ways that the book of Revelation encourages or exhorts people to overcome. Can we just hit each one like really quickly?

Dr. Stewart 13:12
Definitely. And to give a little more context on that, this first chapter is about the first principle for reading. Focus on the original purpose. And what I argue is the original purpose of Revelation is to motivate us as hearers to become overcomers. That's the purpose. The whole book, all the visions, they're designed to motivate us to be overcomers. And then the question is-well...and I get that from a few different data points in the book. Each of the letters to the seven churches, ends with this promise to the one who overcomes. To the one who overcomes, then it gives some promise related to the new creation, to the new heavens and the new earth. Then in chapter 22, it summarizes all those. The one who overcomes will inherit all these things, a new creation. And so that's in the language of the book itself, to overcome is the goal and to motivate believers and hearers to overcome. And then in chapter 12, of course, is a famous verse, "They overcame, and by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony." The idea that God's people are overcoming the dragon through the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. So overcoming is, in the words of the book itself, sort of the main theme. And that's related to the word for victory. So in Greek, nike nicao is the word group for victory. And it's the goddess Nike, as it were. We talk about Nike is related to this. You know the goddess of victory. And, of course, we know Nike as a brand. You know the one who wins in an athletic context is the one who has Nike on their side, the goddess of victory. So but it is just a normal language for winning or overcoming or gaining the victory. And that's what Revelation is designed to do, is to motivate us as Christians, to overcome, to gain the victory over all the challenges in life, to win at life, more or less.

Dr. Stewart 14:46
But then that's still very vague, and you say, okay, that's nice motivational, you know, overcome. What does that mean? How does one do it? And so the other thing I unpack in this chapter is, as you read through Revelation-and I approach this couple ways-one is looking at all the imperatives in the book. What are all the commands in the book of Revelation directed towards the hearers to say? What are those commands aimed at? And then, what are some of the main themes in Revelation that sort of coalesced around this idea of overcoming? So the five you mentioned are repentance. So there's quite a few imperatives in Revelation, to repent. Perseverance. The theme of persevering, of being faithful, of holding fast, is a major theme alongside overcoming. Then obedience, and this is expressed in keeping the commandments of God and doing good works. That's a theme throughout Revelation. And then bearing witness occurs all throughout, that God's people are pictured as witnesses and bearing witness. And then worship. So the hymns of Revelation are not there just to inform us about what some angels are doing in heaven. They're there to invite us here on Earth to participate in worship of our Creator. And so those themes of repentance, perseverance, obedience, witness and worship sort of fill out, what does it mean to overcome? How does one do it? And we do it through persevering in our obedience and our faithfulness, by bearing witness to Christ's lordship by worship, and worship expresses our allegiance, the direction of our allegiance, and then repentance. So whenever we're falling short in any of those areas, to turn towards God in repentance instead of turning away from Him. And it's interesting that faith, faith is not a theme of the book Revelation. It doesn't really occur. And I don't think that's because faith or belief is unimportant for John. I think that he assumes faith, but it expresses itself through who we're bearing witness to and who we're worshiping. And that expresses the allegiance, that our faith is expressed through our witness and our worship and our obedience and our perseverance. So I don't think the lack of the language for faith does not mean it's not important, it's just expressed in Revelation in these other ways that are very practical.

Tyler Sanders 16:43
I mean, that's how a lot of people are gonna...I mean that's how we express it still, really. Like, of course, through in and outside of church.

Dr. Stewart 16:51
Yeah, the direction of our worship will express who we're trusting, who we are believing in.

Tyler Sanders 16:55
Right. Now, there's a lot of interesting things in there, right? There's a lot of work you did, looking at themes, looking at imperatives, looking at verbs. Someone who's reading Revelation, is that a good way for them to start digging in a little bit deeper? Like, look for the imperative of verbs? Would that be a way to...?

Dr. Stewart 17:18
Well, it's one way. There's all sorts of ways. As you learn to study the Bible, all sorts of ways to crack a nut, as it were. It's so imperative that they provide a certain type of information. And for me, they help. They help me get in touch with what the actual original author was trying to do with the book, with the visions. And so I've read all sorts of stuff. Hermeneutically, about the impact of Revelation and this and that. And often you drift from the original author. If you don't say grounded in the text, it's easy to drift in your hermeneutical concerns. One example is environmental justice. And there's a movement, missiologically, to read the environment. So caring for the environment is a core part of Christian mission, is the argument that's being made. And I'm all in favor of taking care of the earth. I'm not opposed to that, but they try to ground this in Revelation. The creation care mandate in Revelation. And I don't see it there. It's hard for me to read Revelation and come away thinking that was intended as a major mandate by the original author of Revelation, because it's not actually explicit. And so, it's not that...we can make some implicit arguments and maybe get there in some roundabout paths. But I would want to start with the clear paths laid out by the author. And imperatives are one way to to get there.

Tyler Sanders 18:40
So what would be some other ways you think someone could apply this principle as they're reading the book of Revelation?

Dr. Stewart 18:45
Oh, the original purpose.

Tyler Sanders 18:46
Yeah, is it good to just have that question in mind of like, I'm gonna think about this before I read it, and then as soon as I finish reading it...what would the original author, audience, what would they have been thinking about?

Dr. Stewart 18:58
Well, of my five principles for reading Revelation, this is the least controversial one, the first one. Keep the original purpose of the visions in mind. Focus on that. It's the least controversial. Everyone agrees with it. The visions are meant to motivate us and move us, equip us, enable us to overcome and we do that through repentance and witness and perseverance, obedience and worship. That's fairly non controversial, but it's also easily forgettable. And so we could all agree on that. And then when we start discussing the tribulation or the Millennium or the rapture, you know, that general agreement on the original purpose becomes less essential, I guess. And so it's easily...again, it's not a difficult principle, and there's large agreement on it, but it also tends to be forgotten fairly quickly. But one way it helps, like in chapter 13, the first piece is introduced and it's given authority to overcome, God's people. And then right in the middle of chapter 13, before the second beast is introduced, is that here is a call for the perseverance of the saints. So it sort of stops the vision right in the middle, and calls upon the hearers to interpret this vision, in a way that would motivate them for perseverance. And so that's some of the ways that it just plays out in the visions. It's just interspersed throughout them all, is calling us back to apply it in our lives, to put it into practice in our lives, in a way that would guide us towards overcoming. To persevere, to be faithful, despite all the pressure to compromise, or to turn away, or to worship other things, to give our allegiance to others instead of Christ. And so all that pressure. And these visions are designed to enable us to overcome. So there's a number we could turn to, if you want to look at some specific passages.

Dr. Stewart 18:58
Yeah. Oh, you have a Greek New Testament here.

Dr. Stewart 20:40
Oh yeah, always, yeah.

Tyler Sanders 20:42
That's awesome.

Dr. Stewart 20:42
Revelation seven. So right in this vision here, of the 144,000 and of course John's asking, who are these people-well, the 144,000 moves on in the vision to this enumerable multitude worshiping before the throne, standing before the throne and worshiping. And John has asked who they are. And he turns the question around, "My Lord, you know." And the answer is, "The ones who are standing, who are worshiping before the throne, these are the ones who have come out of the Great Tribulation. They've washed their robes, and they've made them white in the blood of the Lamb." And that's important because of the prior chapter, chapter six, has six of the seven seals, and the sixth seal opens. And it's this sort of cosmic upheaval, the divine wrath, the Great Day of the Wrath of God. And chapter six ends with a question, "The Great Day of the Wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" So that's the question in chapter six, and it's this very practical question. So, in the day of God's judgment, who's going to be able to stand? Who's going to survive it? Who's not going to be cowering in fear and terror, who's able to stand? In chapter seven verse nine, this sort of interlude, this digression between the sixth seal and the seventh seal, chapter seven, verse nine says, "These are the ones who are standing, they're standing before God's throne." And so this vision answers that question, who's able to stand in the day of God's judgment? Well, it's the ones who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And that's the answer to the question. And so very practically saying, part of overcoming is this. It's the ability to stand in the day of God's judgment. This answers that question, who are the ones able to stand? Well, the ones who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And that metaphor itself is brilliantly apocalyptic. We haven't talked about that today, but it's such a paradox. You wash-you don't normally use blood to make things white. But the blood of the lamb has this...it's a purifying detergent, a cleansing effect that it has. And so there is pointing to salvation. It's pointing to believers who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. So that's one example where the vision is sort of...woven into the vision is this call upon us as hearers. To make sure that that's true of us. To make sure that that applies to us, that we'll be the ones who are able to stand in the day of God's Judgement.

Tyler Sanders 21:00
And makes it clear how that happens.

Dr. Stewart 21:45
Yes, connected to the lamb's blood. And the blood being the way to describe His death. So Jesus's death on our behalf, vicariously for us, and we get the benefit, the purifying power of that death for us.

Tyler Sanders 23:06
And that's an image we've kind of maintained today. We talk a lot about the blood of the lamb still in church. Like, that's in a lot of our hymns and our songs. Like, that's still a very present image for us, I think.

Dr. Stewart 23:20
Oh, some of it borders on bizarre, in some of our worship songs, I remember growing up with hymns a little bit. And you know, "Are you washed in the blood?" It's like, okay, that's happiness. But then there's a fountain. There's a fountain filled with blood. I'm thinking, like, if I was a non Christian hearing that, like, what am I getting myself into here? But it does relate to these visions in Revelation and the power of the blood being the power of His death on our behalf. So, that's one example. I mean, we could point out examples all throughout the book. Turning to chapter 12, we already mentioned, this vision of the pregnant woman and the dragon and the child being born and taken to God's throne in chapter 12. And then this war in heaven, the dragon is cast down. And this application to the hearers. They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their witness. And they did not love their lives to the point of death. Chapter 12, verse 11. So again, it's modeling for us in the middle of the conflict right now. This is how victory is accomplished. And again, it's connected to the lamb. So it's the blood of the Lamb again, so connected to Jesus's death on our behalf. And then it's linking it with our own witness. And that's, again, the faith that's expressed through our verbal witness, and then our commitment to Christ. They didn't love their lives, even to the point of death. The willingness to suffer. And so it's impacting us. It's directed to us right in the present time. And we could give, I don't know how many more examples we could give, quite a few more examples of this.

Tyler Sanders 24:44
Let's just end on that one. Because I think the other thing that passage does for us, is it also kind of demonstrates the big idea, the principle. There's such fantastic imagery in there, and maybe it's just me, I think I'm not abnormal, I think a lot of people would do this too. The imagery is, like, sensational. It's very vivid, and so maybe we're not so much to blame for just going there. What does that mean? What are these symbolic things? And then we miss, in the text, it's telling us what it means for us. It doesn't give like every single detail or something like that, but it says how we're supposed to take this and apply it to the Christian life.

Dr. Stewart 25:15
Yeah. Well, apocalypse in general, it's a word for uncovering or unveiling. It's revealing things from God's perspective. And so a lot of these visions are giving us insight and perspective into reality from God's view. Spiritual realities are invisible to our human eyes, and so we don't easily see them. And Revelation is sort of pulling back that curtain to give us the snapshots of the spiritual world and the spiritual realm and how that's impacting us. And it's uncovering, sort of, reality from God's perspective and giving us this insight that is directly relevant to our lives and is designed to impact us in our lives. Because these spiritual realities are impacting us, and we're just either ignorant of them and oblivious to them, or we're perceiving them and we're seeing and we're responding to them properly.

Tyler Sanders 25:36
Yeah, well, I think that's really good. Maybe we should wrap up and then start thinking about next episode, where we can talk about the second principle, getting into original context a bit. Is there any kind of, like, homework you'd like to assign listeners? Is there something maybe they could read in Revelation to kind of prepare for that?

Dr. Stewart 26:34
Oh, certainly. So the main takeaway, in terms of homework that I would always tell people is, read the book of Revelation. Just read it. And you'd be surprised how many Christians actually haven't read it, or they've just read parts of it or they've read it maybe once, so long ago. And so that's my first advice to anyone who's embarking on a study of Revelation, is to actually read the book of Revelation, ideally in one sitting. It's short enough that you could do that. And then what that does is that gives you the overview of the whole. You see the visions and how they're related to each other in the big picture. And sometimes, when you read really slowly...there's trade offs, there's pros and cons, and there's a place for slow reading. But in Revelation it's to read it straight through. And then you get the big picture. You see how the visions are connected. And then when you turn to a book, like, my book, "Reading the Book Revelation, Five Principles", or any other book on Revelation, you'll get much more out of it if you've read the book [of Revelation] recently yourself.

Tyler Sanders 27:25
I think that's always a challenge. I've said this on multiple other podcasts, and anyone who will listen to me, I always end up sharing the story, I had, for Hebrew exegesis in seminary, the book of Jonah. It's a very short book. You spend all semester, going word by word, letter by letter, like really digging in deep. And towards the end of the semester, my professor let us just listen to the book of Jonah recited in Hebrew. And it's like a few minutes long. Three or four minutes or something like that, you can hear the whole thing. And it's such a good reminder, you have to look at the big picture too. And then, of course, we need to do deep study and take time to do slow reading and really dig in. But it's also good to have the big picture to help you contextualize and put things together. That's a much easier way to find themes.

Dr. Stewart 28:16
Yeah, and then as you read through Revelation, this first principle we talked about today, keep the original purpose. Focus on the original purpose of the visions and try to discern that, Start putting that into practice as you're reading each vision, saying, How should this impact me as a reader? How is this vision designed to help me overcome, to motivate me to overcome, to enable me to overcome? And start asking that question with each vision.