Critics of television have pointed out that too many hours spent in front of the tube are ruining the attention span of us all, young and old alike. Politicians running for office speak less and less to complex issues, resorting instead to sound bites of a minute or less. John's visionary experience in the book of Revelation must have been more like watching television than reading a book, and yet his attention span is better than mine as I try to follow the plot of his work. So much happens so quickly in Revelation that I find it all too easy to forget what has gone before. John himself does not forget, but picks up the thread of earlier visions accurately and often unexpectedly. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fifteenth chapter, where he picks up details from chapters 4, 8, 12 and 14.