Every Friday evening my housemates and I walk across the patio of our apartment complex to meet with some fellow missionaries for Bible Study.  This is our first endeavor and we are all excited about what God wants to do during this time.  We are currently working our way through the book of Revelation.  You may be thinking "WOW, what a book to start with" but having gone through this book on numerous occasions (in college at Lee, in my BCC class with YWAM and just my own interest in the book in general) I can say that I learn something new every time I read it and it is not as intimidating as it seems. 

This past week we were talking about the Author, John the Beloved, and looking at various forms of historical value where we can find the people, places and events in the Bible and how to use these tools to be able to prove the Bible and this book's validity.  We were looking at John the Beloved and the people he hung out with.  When reading the book of Revelation it is easy to think that John was a nutcase with is visions of a dragon with 7 heads or locusts that look like horses or all the other crazy things mentioned in this book.  But the fact is if we look at John outside of the book of Revelation we see that he was a highly respected person, he hung out with people like Peter, Stephen, James; people who were martyred (killed) because of their message.  They believed in it so much that they were willing to die horrific deaths, some being crucified, some being stoned to death, some being dipped in wax and used as human candles for parties.  These were the people who he was associated with.  He was just like them, willing to die for the message.