Daily Devotional For January 2, 2025
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him, to show to His servants what must soon take place. And He signified it, sending it through His angel to His servant John. Rev 1:1.
We are living in a time of massive change. It seems almost impossible now, particularly for the younger generation, but twenty-five years ago there were no personal computers, no cell phones, no VCRs or DVD players, no PDAs, and no Internet. These few items alone have changed our lives as much as all the inventions from the dawn of time until 1980.
The time when the Book of Revelation was written also witnessed a significant change in technology. The turn of the first Christian century witnessed a transition from scrolls to the codex style of making books. A scroll involved a single long sheet of paper (made from animal skins or papyrus reeds) that would be rolled up on a stick, a codex involved glueing or stitching many pieces together at one end, much like the book in your hand.
Before John’s time no one even dreamed of carrying a “Bible” around. Scrolls were so heavy and awkward that nothing larger than one of the New Testament gospels could be fitted onto one scroll. The codex-style allowed books to be smaller in size and more manageable. It also made it possible for books to be much larger in content, somewhat like increasing your hard drive space ten or twenty fold. While scrolls the size of Isaiah and the Psalms were unthinkable, it was possible to include many Bible books in a single codex. So the codex style rapidly replaced the scroll as the format of choice. The major exception was the Jewish synagogue, where the scroll format continues to be used for Scripture.
Writers often put book titles on the outside of scrolls, so they could be identified without being opened. But with the arrival of the codex, scribes frequently placed the title of a work in the opening line. So “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” is more than just the opening line of the book, it is also the title.
Right from the start we learn that the Apocalypse is not the revelation of the Middle East, the Papacy or the Islamic world. The title of the book is not even “The Revelation of the End-time,” it is the revelation of Jesus Christ. As difficult as the book may be to understand, it’s primary purpose is to teach us about Jesus. If my interpretation of Revelation doesn’t lead to a clearer picture of Jesus, you can be pretty sure I haven’t really understood the book.
Lord, thank you so much for the advances in technology that have made your Word more accessible than ever before. But in all my use of technology or Scripture, help me never to lose sight of Jesus. May this new year bring me a clearer picture of Jesus than I have ever had, a clearer view of just how He would have lived the life I face.