Revelation is much easier to understand once you see three basic principles at work. In this session, Vince DiPaola sums them up:

1. The message is given through symbolic images. Revelation is a picture book. A crown, a sword, a beast or a lampstand each stands for something real, but the image itself shouldn’t be read literally. The same goes for the numbers.
2. The meaning comes from the Old Testament. The best guide to Revelation is Scripture itself: Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Exodus and others. The news headlines are not the place to start.
3. The structure repeats in cycles rather than running in a straight line. Revelation covers the same age seven times, each time from a new angle and in more detail. This is called progressive parallelism, and it changes how we read chapters 19 and 20.

Revelation was written as a pastoral letter. Its purpose is to encourage believers and assure them that Christ wins.

The Revelation Sessions
Exploring Revelation through Scripture and the world of its first hearers.

Have a question? Visit therevelationsessions.com and select “Ask a Question.” Your question may be discussed in a future episode.

Follow the podcast for new episodes, and share it with someone who wants to understand Revelation more clearly.

Revelation can feel confusing if you read it as one straight timeline from chapter 1 to chapter 22. In this episode, Vincent Dipaola walks through the third principle for understanding the book: Revelation takes us through the same age again and again, from Christ’s first coming to the final judgment, and views that period from a new angle each time.

Drawing on Pastor Max Doner’s framework, Vince works through seven cycles, or parallels: the letters to the churches, the seals, the trumpets, Satan and his helpers, the bowls of wrath, the fall of Babylon and the beast, and Satan bound and finally judged. He shows how Revelation 12 returns to Christ’s birth right after the judgment scene of chapter 11, and why Revelation 20 can be read as a new cycle rather than a sequel to chapter 19.

In this episode:
• Why Revelation 11 and 12 show that the book is not strictly chronological
• How Herod in Matthew 2 and the dragon in Revelation 12 portray the same attack
• What the binding of Satan restrains, according to Matthew 12, Luke 10 and the Great Commission
• How “progressive parallelism” adds detail to the same event, using the fall of Babylon in chapters 14, 16 and 18
• The book’s destination: God dwelling forever with his redeemed people

The Revelation Sessions
Exploring Revelation through Scripture and the world of its first hearers.

Have a question? Visit therevelationsessions.com and select “Ask a Question.” Your question may be discussed in a future episode.

Follow the podcast for new episodes, and share it with someone who wants to understand Revelation more clearly.

Revelation can feel like a closed book" through the "Corrected Scripture references

The Revelation Sessions
Exploring Revelation through Scripture and the world of its first hearers.

Have a question? Visit therevelationsessions.com and select “Ask a Question.” Your question may be discussed in a future episode.

Follow the podcast for new episodes, and share it with someone who wants to understand Revelation more clearly.