Resources comparing the use of "alpha and omega" to "the first and the last"

Bruce!             *smile*               Peace and Every Blessing!                    Thanks for your post ........           I most certainly echo your sentiments  ...

Tonight I'd love to hurl many, many well-deserved accolades to Mark  ...    and  ...    Keep Smiling   ...      and      MJ    and Ben        and so very many others on so many threads ...   including you, Bruce   .........               for all the Blessings I have received through the Logos Forums Community sharing and conversations ......

               This evening I just simply sat down and let the Spirit lead me in a personal growth study using Logos Bible Software  .....  Bible   AND resources!

I have been blessed by lots of resources; and I had a wonderful time!                 Good night, all!        *smile*     Pleasant Dreams!    am signing off after I share the following:

I started with the reference from Black's Commentary on Revelation referred to by Keep Smiling, and ended up praising my God and Saviour!

                Amen!       I actually worshipped and do worship God with the believers in the early church and of all time and every place as I (and old retired Lutheran Pastor) continue by His Grace to be part of the One Holy Apostolic Catholic Church....

            Right now I'm studying also hymns and liturgy in the Bible and Discovered this in Blacks Commentary KSFJ, leading me there with his search ...

5b–8 In Paul’s letters, the epistolary introduction is generally followed by a thanksgiving for the recipients or a doxology, and John provides the latter here. Yet many have been struck by its profoundly liturgical ring. It is as if John’s audiences are invited to burst into song as they make his vision their own, perhaps joining in the responses of a liturgical dialogue with the lector (Vanni 1991). In support of this, one should note the sudden change to the first person plural in verse 5b (following the better reading), and the repeated ‘Amen!’ The dialogue would then function something like this:

  Reader:   verses 4–5a   Congregation:   verses 5b–6, concluding with ‘Amen!’   Reader:   verse 7   Congregation:   ‘Yes indeed! Amen!’   Reader:   verse 8

Elements of these verses may have been derived from existing liturgical tradition, and therefore congregations could have joined in on a first hearing (accounting for the jarring transition at the beginning of verse 6). If so, John would not be alone among New Testament writers: others are also believed to have cited extant hymns and creeds familiar to their addressees (e.g. Rom. 1:3–4; 3:24–25; Phil. 2:6–11; Col. 1:15–20; Jn 1:1–18). Or perhaps this dialogue aspect may only have been picked up on subsequent readings of the Apocalypse. Either way, this section has the effect of drawing the hearers more closely into the ‘point of view’ of the text. Christ is designated as the one who loves us. It is important to hold onto this, for the violent apocalyptic imagery in the rest of Revelation means that this aspect of the gospel is sometimes lost sight of. According to the majority reading, he has set us free (λύσαντι; a minority of later readings have ‘washed’ (λούσαντι), which is probably due to scribal error) from our sins by his blood. This evokes the story of the Exodus, that great ‘setting free’ of God’s people which became a key paradigm for the Christian liberation in Christ. Sin here is understood not primarily as human wrongdoing, but as a power which enslaves (cf. Rom. 3:9; 5:12–14; 6:5–11). The story of the new Exodus, already present in exilic prophets such as Second Isaiah, will be one of those key plots in the rest of the book, which will describe in visionary form how the Lamb leads his people from slavery to freedom, from Babylon to new Jerusalem. The means of achieving this is not—as in the first Exodus—the slaughter of the Egyptian first-born, but by Christ’s own death, by his blood. Though John does not spell out the mechanism by which this occurs, the reference to blood suggests sacrifice. Echoes of the Exodus story continue with echoes of Exod. 19:6, where God promises to ma

Boxall, I. (2006). The Revelation of Saint John. Black’s New Testament Commentary (pp. 32–33). London: Continuum.