Throughout the last few years, I believe that I have matured and grown into a positive role model and an intelligent young woman, neither of which would have been possible without the lifestyle that I was raised in. I was raised in a southern Baptist family and within my religious views, I have continually watched myself and others around me mature in our walk with Jesus, and watch how interaction with people of the same beliefs can strengthen a person’s religion. My first thought of this class was one like I am sure many of my classmates had, this class is going to be like a church sermon or Sunday School class every week. I was confused as to how my classmates and I were going to be tested on material like that preached on in churches on
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Before this class, I had heard of the book of Revelation and knew that it was a very touchy subject for many people that are religious or spiritual due to the fact that it is an apocalyptic book. Although I knew some about the book of Revelation, I did not know all that there was to know about this book in particular, and still after learning about this in class, there are many more things to continue to learn about this. In class, I learned that Revelation is an apocalypse, typically written in the times of persecution, and used many images and symbols of an end-time cosmic battle between good and bad. I also learned that there are very diverse interpretations of Revelation. Some people avoid this subject all together because it is hard to understand or scary, while others obsess and try to interpret everything. Before this class, I knew that people obsess over the mark of the devil/Beast and 666. Although I had an idea of what these meant, I was not sure what they represented. The number 666 is known to be an example of gematria, numerical symbolism where letters have certain numerical values that, when added up, equal a number, in this case 666. It is known that 666 is to be equal to the name Neron Ceasar who was not nice, and had a severe persecution of Christians, which relates to the book of Revelation in that both are apocalyptic and deal with times of persecution. Although Revelation was written as a future event and a historical event, it was written for first century persecuted Christians, but is still a future
Before this class, I had heard of the book of Revelation and knew that it was a very touchy subject for many people that are religious or spiritual due to the fact that it is an apocalyptic book. Although I knew some about the book of Revelation, I did not know all that there was to know about this book in particular, and still after learning about this in class, there are many more things to continue to learn about this. In class, I learned that Revelation is an apocalypse, typically written in the times of persecution, and used many images and symbols of an end-time cosmic battle between good and bad. I also learned that there are very diverse interpretations of Revelation. Some people avoid this subject all together because it is hard to understand or scary, while others obsess and try to interpret everything. Before this class, I knew that people obsess over the mark of the devil/Beast and 666. Although I had an idea of what these meant, I was not sure what they represented. The number 666 is known to be an example of gematria, numerical symbolism where letters have certain numerical values that, when added up, equal a number, in this case 666. It is known that 666 is to be equal to the name Neron Ceasar who was not nice, and had a severe persecution of Christians, which relates to the book of Revelation in that both are apocalyptic and deal with times of persecution. Although Revelation was written as a future event and a historical event, it was written for first century persecuted Christians, but is still a future