The Revelation builds conviction, inspires worship, and encourages patient endurance. This is a prison epistle like no other: a disciple-making tract, a manifesto, an extraordinary treatise on Christ and culture, and a canonical climax. We come expecting to learn the ABCs of the end times, and the Apostle John gives us the fullness and fury of his Spirit-inspired praying imagination. Meaning is not found in cleverly devised interpretations, but in God's redemptive story. The apostle's purpose was to strengthen the people of God against cultural assimilation and spiritual idolatry, not to stimulate end times speculation. The Revelation is a sustained attack against diluted discipleship with an unrelenting focus on the immediacy of God's presence in the totality of life. Nothing escapes the gaze of Christ.
