Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Good Morning!

 

Remember, that tonight is the second of four stewardship meetings this week.  You should have received a letter about which night you should attend, but the short answer is that you are welcome any night that you can attend.  Meetings start at 7P each night, Monday through Thursday.

 

Today's Reading

 

For the first three days of this week, we are going to cover the introduction to the study:

 

Monday - pages 1 - 7

Tuesday - pages 7 - 15

Wednesday pages 15-23

 

Notes about Tuesday's reading.

 

-- Their are three main sections in the study for the day.

 

-- It is a bit confusing at first, but what Barclay is doing in the first two sections is looking at the major ideas/images from Revelations and noting where similar language/ideas/images are noted in the Jewish apocalyptic writings (mot of which are not in our Bible.)  If you have read Revelation at all, it is interesting at the similarities between Revelation and those other writings.  And in particular, the overall feeling you come away is that the times that are discussed in those writings will be terrifying.  But also, Barclay is going to make the point down the road that whoever wrote Revelation had to have a familiarity with these other writings, since there is such a consistency, and based on what I've seen here, I'd agree.  That said, one of the reasons that they could be consistent is that they are accurate visions of the future -- if both the writer of Revelation and the writers of these other books were given visions by God of the future, it stands to reason that God would have shown them the same future.

 

-- In the third section, Barclay talks about the authorship of the book of Revelation. Conventional church wisdom is that the John noted as the author is the apostle John.  That's what the commentary portion of my Bible has.  And to be true, I love the story that goes with that, that we discussed in Sunday School -- the last apostle, late in life, writing this vision.

 

-- That said, Barclay argues the facts, and he has a strong case that in fact the John who wrote Revelation was not the apostle John.  To be honest, I don't believe the author ever claims to be the apostle John, I think everyone just assumed this.  And to be fair to Barclay, this isn't just his skepticism at work -- we knew going in that there were two schools of thought about the authorship. (you can check the Wikipedia entry for Revelation linked on the website for that discussion).  So as much as I love the romanticism of the story about John being the Apostle John, I'm persuaded that Barclay is right on this point -- that our author is not the apostle John.  It would be interesting to hear your points of view on this on Sunday. Are you persuaded by Barclay's discussion?

Today's Scripture

In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorius

Isiah 11:10

Today's prayer request:      The family of Allie Hamilton

 

From Monica:

 

I need to enlist prayers for a family that attended our church some in the past. Allie Hamilton, who is a senior at McAdory, was killed in a car accident last night. Her mother Sue Hamilton Salvago is refusing anyone to visit her who did not know Allie personally. Please be in prayer for the youth of our church who are hurting at this time.

 

Today's class member prayer:

 

Wes Russell

Have a great day.

Jay