MWR : Reading Revelation

Last updated December 27.

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Jan. 2 issue

Reading Revelation

By Jack Stauffer Newton, Kan.

I enjoyed “Revelation Links to Advent” (Faith Matters, Dec. 19) by John A. Esau. I attended a fundamentalist Bible college in the 1950s. It was very strong on prophecy and end-time studies. The end of the world was surely going to happen in our lifetime! Later at Bethel College, I found quite a difference in teaching of the Bible. One morning in chapel President E.G. Kaufman said St. John was too long on the Isle of Patmos by himself; that’s why he wrote the Book of Revelation. I about fell out of my chair. Keep writing, John Esau!

Comments

Jack, was Bethel College Pres. Kaufman inferring that John was on the Isle of Patmos by himself too long and was suffering from some kind of old age senility as the basis for the book of Revelation?

In a moment, this man planted seeds of doubt in your mind that took instant root and apparently have been growing ever since.

In the book of Rev are 14 verses that have the word ‘write’. John was told to write what God revealed to him in word and vision. John was God’s man, in his right mind, at God’s right place, writing what God was revealing to him.

On this remote island, I don’t think there was a local store having stationary supplies. I believe God revealed to John what to write but also provided all that was needed to write with and durable material to write on. In addition to all that, somehow, in the providence of God, this writing was preserved, found it’s way off the island and into the hands of holy men of God who, under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God determined them to become the last book of the Holy Bible we have it today.

God says, “Is there anything to hard for Me?

- Dale Welty (dec 31 at 11:15 a.m.)

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