Christ's earthly teachings are remarkable in their clarity in contrast to the rest of John's writing in Revelations. In fact, John's Gospel is so concise and clear that it hardly seems possible that the same mind wrote Revelation."
This is a spot-on observation which is addressed nicely in the first chapter of John's letter:
Rev 1:9 [i]I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying,
“Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” -ESV
John recorded the dreams that the Spirit of God gave him. Quite different from recording historical events...
Now..... THAT'S just how I dispense with the whole "prophecy portion" of Revelation, so that it causes me no concern.
Therefore, I'm under no obligation to defend the idea.
I agree with you. I don't find there to be much to argue about. A buddy of mine once asked me when we were talking about this stuff whether I read all sections of the newspaper the same... sports and weather reporting, editorial, comics, classified ads, etc, to which I replied obviously "no".
He asked me if that was because I had no respect for the paper and again I replied obviously "no". Why, then, he asked, should I think I can read apocalyptic writings (Revelation) the same as historical writings (Gospel of John)? He seemed to be suggesting to me that we adjust our reading style and expectation for clarity based upon literary styles all the time why should we not for the Bible?
Bottom line take-away for me from that section of the book; Jesus has beaten sin & death and is in heaven w/ the Father from whence he shall return to set things aright.
Halleluiah what a Savior..
