"Why are so many Christians obsessed with the book of Revelation?" That's what a caller asked Steve Gregg, host of The Narrow Path radio program.
I am truly thankful for Steve's reply to this question. As Steve stated, the important practice for the Christian is to do what Jesus taught NOW rather than focus on an earthly future that we can do nothing about anyway.
I would like to suggest that it is not known that the apostle John wrote Revelation. The writer identifies himself as "John" four times. But he doesn't state that he is the apostle John.
The apostle John wrote the gospel of John as well as First John. In neither of these books does John state that he is the author.
Indeed, there is a bit of internal evidence that the apostle is NOT the author of Revelation.
In 1st John, John wrote the Greek word for "Jerusalem" 12 times. In every case, he uses the same Greek word, that is
"ιεροσολυμα" (in its lexical form).
In Revelation, the writer uses a different Greek word (in its lexical form) 3 times. He is also consistent in all 3 cases. His word is
"ιερουσαλημ".
So someone whose name is "John" had a vision. He wrote down what he saw in his vision. Does it make sense to interpret that vision as descriptive of future events?