Bible End Times Prophecy Series – Week 47
Background on the Seven Churches of Revelation
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| Map of the seven churches/BibleStudy.org |
Revelation 1:19-20 (NLT):
19 “Write down what you have seen—both the things that are now happening and the
things that will happen.
20 This is the meaning of the mystery
of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands: The
seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven
lampstands are the seven churches.”
Revelation, Chapters 2 and 3
contain the Lord’s messages to the seven Christian churches (approximately 95
A.D.) in Asia Minor. These churches were located in what today is modern Turkey,
a predominantly Muslim country.
Some Bible scholars believe the seven churches represent
sequential dispensations that represent the state of the Christian church over
various periods of history. If that’s the case, then we are in trouble because
it would mean that we are in the era that the lukewarm Laodiceans represented.
Although this
may be the case in places in Europe and the United States – places where people
are more concerned with maintaining material comforts than with developing a
close relationship with God – it is not true in other parts of the world where the church
is experiencing severe persecution and or genuine growth.
The churches in Asia Minor when John the Apostle was alive had
their own issues. Jesus reproved five of them – Ephesus, Thyatira, Pergamos,
Sardis and Laodicea - and commended the other two, Smyrna and Philadelphia. The
early church at this time was young yet was already struggling in some areas.
Most of the early Christians who were not Jews came from heavily
pagan backgrounds; hence, the cultural influences they were born into were not
entirely gone after salvation. The Roman Empire, which by now considered the monotheistic
Christians a political threat, controlled the region.
Paul the Apostle left
many helpful instructions for the early Christians in the Epistles, but in
Revelation it was Jesus himself who was pointing out certain things to the seven
churches. His messages have applications for Christians everywhere and at all
times, individually and collectively.
Next: The Seven Churches continued …
Shalom
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