Revelation: The End Times - Intro

A couple weeks ago, on March 11th, my friends and I heard about the horrific disaster in Japan, and began talking about the End Times. We were discussing my favorite book in the Bible, Revelation, and were wanting to dive deeper into that book to find out more. Now, I have read Revelation over and over, and because of the tremendous earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and all of the talk and worry over the End Times, I have decided that my first amateur attempt to study the Bible will be with Revelation. I will be using an ESV bible. The NIV is a great bible to use for study.

First, I would like to give you the background of this book. Revelation was written by my favorite disciple, John. John and his brother, James, were both from Bethsaida, along with Andrew and Peter.(see in John 1:44) John and James were known as "the sons of Zebedee", and like him, they were fishermen.

In Luke, we find that John and James were in partnership with Simon Peter, who also had his own ship. These three men were very wealthy, but when Jesus called them to be "fishers of men", they dropped everything, followed, and ended up becoming part of the inner circle that followed Jesus during his earthly life. Of these three, John seemed to be the closest to Jesus, and was called "the disciple whom Jesus loved".(see in John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; and 21:7)

John wrote the last of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke's books are called the synoptic gospels. Synoptic meaning, taking or involving a comprehensive mental view. John's gospel, however, is much different, and was written years later.

John also wrote the letters; 1, 2, and 3 John. But John wrote the only prophectic book in the new testemant, Revelation.

Intro To The BSB

Hi! If you haven't already read the "About Me" part of my blog, I just turned 16 this past April and I've been a christian since I was 5. I was born in Burbank California in 1994 and lived in North Hollywood for 2 years, then came along one of my younger sisters, Kirsten, in May of 1996. two days later, we moved to another part of Los Angeles. Seven years later, and two more sisters, Stephanie(1998) and Tiffany(2000), and we moved again to my current home in Sacramento, California in 2003. Changing cities means changing churches. So we started attending a church(lets just call it "Jesus Church" for now.) I made a bunch of friends and got really connected. But "Jesus Church" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. After a move from the original building into a much smaller one fifteen miles away and a change of name, most of the people realized that some un-healthy stuff was going on behind the scenes and split from "Jesus Church" and all went their seperate ways. My family soon did the same. Changing churched was difficult for a famly of six with four girls (ages from seven to thrteen.) Not that new friends were hard to make for us (everytme we went to the grocery store, there was always a little girl or two making friends with my little sisters and I) it's just that...well, being up-rooted from a place you and your friends pretty much grew up in isn't the easiest to do. The first few weeks were relly hard on me. It showed on my face. Well at least that's what one of my friends said when I was tying to recall our first meeting. Apparently I was picking up Steph and Tiff from Sunday school and Jaimie (my friend) was the person signing them out. And she told me that I looked bummed out. But since then, we have really clicked in with our lives at our new church. I had it on my heart to create this blog. I hope you enjoy it, and I pray this blog inhances your walk with God!
<3Mandi