If those of us who teach the Bible are honest, we must admit that initially the book of Revelation was tough reading -- even after we had read it through many times. But perseverence paid off, because like all books of the Bible, with familiarity comes understanding, and it is no longer "the beast" that it once was.
At first, it seemed like God's purpose for the book of Revelation was to veil or hide some teaching about the end times from our knowledge or sight. Au contraire! Actually the opposite is true. If God's purpose was to hide, to veil, to block, the book would have been called Veilation -- although for me, it might as well have been called Veilation through the first few times through. Even now, every teacher of Revelation has had to reluctantly admit concerning certain passages, "These verses are still a puzzle", or "The meaning of this passage has been debated for 1900 plus years."
The word Revelation, is related to the English word "reveal", and comes from the Greek word apokalypsis which you may recognize in the English form "apocalypse" (for example, "The four horsemen of the apocalypse.") The word apocalypse means "revelation, disclosure, unveiling", and that is indeed what happens as one becomes familiar with the book and with the Bible in total.
So do not dispair if you are new to the Bible, or at least to Revelation. Surveys show that many people have read the Bible through, except for the book of Revelation. It is time for that to change, it is time for it to become unveiled to you! That will happen as we study forward through the book, and particularly as we compare it to the other prophetic passages in the Bible.
In the near future, we'll look at how we got the book of Revelation.
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