Week 51 Revelation
Feeling words come to my mind when I get to Revelation. Difficult incomprehensible vague shadowy unclear elusive ominous mysterious scary. Like that.
So I stop when I read: God blesses the one who reads this prophecy.
Okay! That sounds pretty nice:
…God blesses the one who reads this prophecy
…which means God blesses a person who – specifically – reads Revelation
…which also means (since I’m reading Revelation) that God blesses me!
So I’m feeling pretty good about that.
I read on and see that the whole verse says: God blesses the one who reads this prophecy to the church, and he blesses all who listen to it and obey what it says.
Right away I notice the two “ands”. When I break the verse down I see that God blesses a person who…
a) reads Revelation…
b) listens to what it’s saying…
c) obeys what it says.
So I’m feeling a little less pretty-good now.
Reading is just the first element. There’s two other members in the set – listening & obeying.
My suspicion is that listening needs some more thinking-about – at the very least I think listening needs an adjective – something like active or attentive or focused listening.
The obeying step doesn’t need adjectival help. I’ve basically just got obey or else disobey.
So anyway…my end-of-the-year bible-reading reminder is that reading is one thing but not the only thing.
Note: quote from Revelation 1:3 (NLT)