469. Second Peter In Peter's second letter (less elegantly written than 1 Peter) he began by pointing out that he did not have long to live and wanted to lay down the things most essential for his disciples to remember, urging them to grow in the knowledge of the truth. Near the end of this epistle, Peter made reference to some of Paul's letters.
470. First John is the first of three letters written by John. These three letters have notable similarities to his Gospel and the Book of Revelation. These letters speak out against the heresy of Gnosticism. The Gnostics taught that the body and this world are evil and that salvation came through special knowledge.
471. Second John. In this short but personal letter, John dealt with the problem of false teachers. He appeared to be counseling a particular congregation not to receive visiting teachers who proclaimed false teachings.
472. Third John. Ironically this letter dealt with the flip side of the problem covered in 2 John. In this case John wrote to a congregation that had been rejecting visiting teachers. Only here, the visiting teacher in question was true. Second and Third John are the two shortest books in the entire Bible.
473. Jude, like James, was a sibling of Jesus. His letter seemed to be written at a time when many of the apostles had already been martyred. He made references to their warnings about false teachers and Peter's and Paul's predictions. Jude made the point that these teachings had indeed reached projected proportions. Jude's writing sets the stage for the final book of the Bible.
474. The Epistle of Jude quotes from 1 Enoch 1:9 and the Assumption of Moses. Many Christians have not heard of these books because they were written before the time of the New Testament and were not accepted into the Canon of inspired Scripture by the Jewish or Christian communities. Yet Jude used them to make a point in his epistle.
475. Apocalyptic writing was a kind of code, a way of communicating that unbelievable enemies would not understand. A person who wrote such literature could encourage his readers to stand against the pagan state and predict its downfall under divine judgment, without fear of reprisal. Modern readers often miss this aspect of the apocalyptic genre, just as the ancient pagans did. It was designed to reveal its message to insiders in terms that an outsider could not understand
476. Revelation. The longest of all the New Testament letters, "The Revelation to John" was addressed to seven specific communities, all of them located in Asia. Like Hebrews, this book was built upon quotations and allusions to Old Testament passages (hundreds of references). The line of the book is as follows: Goodness and evil wage a cataclysmic battle in which goodness wins the decisive victory. The practice of using bizarre conflicting images was a practiced style in ancient times. It was called "apocalyptic," so the book is sometimes called the Apocalypse instead of Revelation. The meaning is actually the same, only apocalypse comes from a Greek root, while revelation comes from a Latin root word.
477. The identity and meaning of the beast numbered 666 has deeply concerned Christians throughout history. Its symbolism has been assigned to satanism in popular culture and to such notorious figures as Napoleon and Hitler. Some scholars believe that while satan is a major player in Revelation, the meaning 666 was clear to the people of the time of its writing. In both Greek and Hebrew, letters doubled as numerals. One solution to the 666 puzzle? The number is produced by adding up the Hebrew letters of "Kaisar Neron," or Emperor Nero, which reaches an equivalent of the number 666.
478. The extraordinary prophetic vision of the second coming of Jesus and the last judgment were given while John was exiled on Patmos, an Aegean island used as a Roman penal colony. The author had been banished there for his preaching most likely during the reign of Roman Emperor Domitian (A.D. 81-96).
479. Apocalypse is the Greek name for the Book of Revelation. The word literally means "to unveil" or "to reveal something that has been hidden." The early church had numerous books claiming to reveal future events, and it wasn't until the fourth century that John's apocalypse was recognized as the one inspired version.
