The Readings
John 19:23-27; 20:30-31; Acts 4:1-31
Revelation 1, 4
Revelation 21-22
Psalm 136
Memory Verse
Revelation 4:11: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Teachers of young children
The world will try first to terrify God’s sovereignty out of them, by making God look weak. When this fails, it will attempt to anesthetize them, by making God look boring. The latter approach is frightfully more effective.
Like I told parents earlier, immerse young children in the grand story of God’s victory over evil. A dying Jesus, looking out for his mom; a follower, astonished by all the Jesus stories he didn’t have time to tell you about; this same follower, telling the authorities that he won’t shut up about it. And that’s before you even get to the drama of Revelation, a fitting conclusion.
Teachers of older children
As kids mature through adolescence their minds can become narrowed and their imaginations dulled. The Bible’s stories teach us about a God who is both near and far, both frightening and gentle. Imagining this God is the foundation for a life of closeness to Him. Younger kids are comfortable with this; adults can become comfortable with it; but teenagers…
But for their sakes, don’t give up! Don’t abandon the stories of their childhood for a propositional approach which reduces belief to ideas they’re supposed to “think correctly about.” Nothing will rob them of faith, and make faith so hard to return to later, than giving in to their supposed “need” for facts-absent-story.
The first readings from John and Acts give us a glimpse of both Jesus and what following Him might look like. Remind your students that the Sanhedrin – the council of religious and political leaders that managed Jerusalem – was the very council that had executed Jesus. They were already annoyed that this “Jesus thing” hadn’t ended quietly. There was no telling what they might do to make it stop for good.
And then Revelation. Remind students of everything you’ve seen in prophecy before: it’s a word from God to His people. It might have contained messages for John’s generation that we cannot understand, or it might have contained messages for future generations of Christians that will someday be fully understood. It could have been an allegory for Christian life, or for the world as a whole. This cannot be known with certainty.
What is known is that it was Christ’s message for his followers. Read it with your students and be content – even joyous – to reply “I don’t know” when they ask questions. Remind them to look for what it says about God, and about the Christian. And keep their imaginations open to a Great Big God.
Teachers of adults
So…Revelation! When my son was in high school, he struggling to get past the halfway point of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. He was constantly stalling as each chapter, even each paragraph, raised deep questions about life and discipleship. I made a recommendation: just read the book to the end, only to see how the story turns out. Then go back and read it again, pausing as often as you want, diving deeply into some passages and skimming through others. It worked.
I encourage, beg, implore you to take the approach I referenced above: Let your students see the end of the story as God has delivered it. Pause to see how symbols and characters fit within the story of Revelation, but try not to get sidetracked looking for hidden meanings. Nobody, nobody, nobody knows anyway, but lots of people will tell you passionately they’ve figured it out. They might even judge you for not agreeing with them! Smile politely, pour their coffee, love them, but salvation does not hinge on deciphering Revelation’s symbols.
Remember two major themes of this Bible study: First, to see what the Bible says about God; Second, to see which conclusions are inevitable. No matter what else is there, what conclusion must be drawn from Revelation? God wins. Drive your students to wrestle with this, to be content with this, then see what else they notice.