The seven churches of Revelation

Alright. Messages to the seven churches. Sometimes you hear them called letters, and actually messages is a better way to put it. They're not in the form of any letters of the time. They're not written like a letter. They're written quite a bit differently. And so messages is probably a better thing to call them.

These seven churches were on kind of what the western end of what we now call Turkey. It was Asia was the kind of the the state within the Roman Empire That it was called and there was international contact you had Ephesus and Smyrna that had there were port cities and so they had Trade routes coming on through the Mediterranean into those two cities the first two in the of the seven churches all of the churches had a major Roman roads going through them and And so there was international traffic of people and merchandise going through the cities. Some of it even well-connected, Ephesus in particular, well-connected to the Silk Road network that brought things as well as ideas out of China and India and other places in the Far East. So lots of international contact. Lots of international contact in this area. There was a lot of Greek background because Alexander the Great, when he left Greece and went over to begin taking over the area that was to be his empire, the first place he went to was this area. These seven churches, so strong Greek background.

220 BC, we pointed out there was a group of Jews that were influenced to move there. Remember the government said, we will give you 10 years tax-free Jews, if you will move to this area." And the Jews, a lot of them, 2,000 families, said, where do I sign up? So they took them up on it. So you had, for the last two and a half centuries, a well-established group of Jews there.

And then, the point we made earlier, every single city had a unique background. So while we could make generalizations, each city was unique. Each city had its own history and cultural background. Just like San Francisco is different from Denver, is different from New York, is different from Miami. We have differences between each of the cities, things that characterize it.

Same thing here. Here's the map. I think a copy of that should be included in your package as well. And what you see is Patmos, the place in red there, it's the island where John is located. He'd been put there by Domitian, from what we can tell. Then you have the seven cities and there is a pattern that goes up the coast and then down and inward. Some folks will describe that as sort of a clockwise movement in terms of the sequence of the cities. And finally ending up with Laodicea and then two nearby cities to Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae are important in terms of their background.

All right. You also, I believe, have this handout. And the first page of it is kind of a summary of the messages to the seven churches. There is pattern to each of the messages. And so this sheet kind of takes up on that pattern. Finally, one of the things that's brought up with every single message is the overcomers. And so the overcomers are summarized on the second sheet there. Each of the overcomers is told something, and what we find is later on, chapter 19 through 22 of Revelation, the fulfillment of that promise to the overcomers is given. So there's a match-up to each one of the things that is stated for the overcomers. Now, Revelation 2, 1 through 7 is the message to Ephesus.

We won't read through that this morning, but you've got it in your handout. Guys, if you'd like, there's handouts up here and you can grab that if that helps you follow along with this. We're glad to have you be able to do that. Just go ahead and grab the batch. Yeah, there we go. So here's Ephesus, the first one, a port city. The largest one, it's the third largest city in the Roman Empire. There was Rome, Alexandria, and then Ephesus, in that order.

Here's the theater and the road leading out to the harbor. The ancient harbor, you can see, is kind of a brown color. That's because it got filled with silt. But this is the theater, described in Acts, where they had the riot. And then this is the road out to the harbor. Paul would have walked that road several times from the descriptions we have in the New Testament.

Here's the main street in Ephesus. It was lamplit at night in New Testament times. Ephesus had every advantage of apostolic background, more than any other church that we're aware of. The reason being, you had Paul, who spoke to the elders at Ephesus directly, and it was the longest address to Christians in the book of Acts. takes up much of chapter 20.

Paul spent three years there. That's what he told them in Acts 20. He spent three years there teaching and he sent Timothy to correct the false teachers. That's what 1 Timothy is about. According to the records outside of scripture, the Apostle John spent his last years there, perhaps over 20 years.

There are accounts of his time and life there in Ephesus. Ephesus was famous for its lamp-lit streets. And what do you see in the messages to the seven churches? The ones addressed to Ephesus? Talks about the lamps. Specific reference, why? Ephesus, famous for its lamp-lit street, the street that goes out to the harbor. Ephesus' principal deity was Artemis, and what they often did in In the times of the Roman Empire, they would show a deity with various other forms than just simply the idol. And one of the forms would be a tree of life. In the middle of the marketplace at Ephesus, they had a fake tree of life. And so what is offered to the believers at Ephesus, those who overcome, I will give you to eat of the tree of life, the real one.

So what you find is throughout the messages to each of the churches, Ephesus is no exception. The message isn't just some general message sent out that just happens to differ for no particular reason. Instead, each message is pinpoint targeted for the specific background and history of the church. It's fine-tuned, particularly for that particular church. Revelation 2, 8 through 11 is about Smyrna. Smyrna is also a port city to the north, a lovely place.

It even had, it had a harbor that was a natural harbor. And then they had the, the kind of the inner portion of the harbor where they had a chain that went across at nighttime. And so they could kind of keep things safe and keep anybody from coming in at night and that sort of thing. and a beautiful place.

We'll see some pictures here to give some sampling of it. But as we look here, here's Smyrna, located the next one to the north of Ephesus, one of the two port cities addressed. And here's the Agora or the marketplace there, some of the columns that are left. Here you see this old Smyrna is underlined on the map there to the right.

Here would be one of Smyrna's beautiful structures remaining from New Testament times, this little archway. You can imagine in those days they'd have this archway and there'd be a bunch of plants and vines and things along it. Very lovely place to walk along and a beautiful place. But it had a Jewish community that was organized as a synagogue. What do you see mentioned in that message to the church at Smyrna? Talks about a synagogue. What does it say about it? Synagogue of Satan.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So what we find is, yes, there was indeed a synagogue there, a Jewish synagogue. And about the time of the writing of the book of Revelation, and in the decades thereafter, the Jewish community showed particular hostility towards Christians at some of the records that we have. So what appears to have been reflected in this message is this was at the start of a fairly major Jewish opposition and persecution of the Christians. And so it's termed there, and it's one of a couple places in these messages to the seven churches, where they're called a synagogue of Satan because of their opposition to the church and to the gospel.

Records from Smyrna indicate that the Jews made significant contributions to the public works activities and were very influential. I have records of them giving large sums of money to various kinds of things, very involved. So the Jews were prominent. The Jews were influential. Apparently, at least some of them were wealthy enough to give enough money to be of note in the public record.

And they use that influence to suppress and to persecute the Christians. So that's the reference here to the synagogue of Satan. And then finally, it mentions a crown as what's being promised to those who are overcomers. And this crown in the message wasn't a royalty crown. It wasn't a diadem, a crown of royalty. It was a victor's crown in an athletic event. And this is the same crown that is used throughout the New Testament promise to believers. It's also the same word for crown used of the 24 elders in the heavenly scene beginning in the fourth and fifth chapter. Okay, now we get to Pergamum. Now we're getting to the first inland city, about 20 miles inland. From there on it gets farther inland as they proceed to the southeast. Here, here's Pergamum here, a little bit farther to the north and inland a bit.

This is the Acropolis, the top of the kind of mountain area right next to the city. And on this Acropolis, there's actually a number of temples. That's one of the things they would often put on these high places next to the cities. Another thing that they would put is kind of on the side slope. They'd oftentimes put theaters and Pergamon has one of those as well. It's still in existence.

On the left, you see the library. This was the second largest library in the Roman Empire. 200,000 volumes, which considering that you can't print them out. That's a lot of books in that era. What's interesting, the first largest library was at Alexandria.

The folks at Alexandria, being in Egypt, had papyrus. That's the reed paper, where they would take it and kind of glue two, you know, cross-directional. The folks at Alexandria didn't like it that the people at Pergamum had a library, and so they wouldn't sell them any papyrus. They said, we don't like you competing with our library, so we won't sell you any papyrus. So the folks at Pergamum said, that's fine, we'll do it on sheepskin, which is what they did. So the folks at Pergamum did the sheepskin, the folks at Alexandria did the papyrus, and they were both happy, sort of.

Now, here's the other interesting thing, is that later on, all the volumes were transferred to Alexandria. Real interesting. Combined them all into one, and the Muslims came in. So we don't have any of those except for maybe a rare few that were preserved. Muslims didn't care for what was stored there. Anyway, you have the library area on the left part here, right next to it the temple of Athena, who is the goddess of wisdom. So this would have been kind of the Hagan high place where they put their knowledge together with this goddess.

Here was also in the high place the temple for the Emperor Octavius, who was later called Augustus Caesar. He was the one who ruled when Christ was born. That's also located there. All right, 29 BC Pergamon was given the privilege of establishing a cult for the goddess Roma, for Rome. And the Emperor Octavian, that's later the one to be called Augustus Caesar. So there's one thing.

A white stone had a few possible meanings in the culture, but the one that fits the facts is the white stone was given in an athletic contest. They would give the winner, the victor, that Stefano's crown, the victor's crown, and they would give him a white stone, which was his invitation to the victor's banquet. So it says there, you know, to he who overcomes, I will give you a white stone. And you're thinking, great, what am I going to do with a white rock? And so this explains it. He's saying, I'm giving you this white stone. Why?

You're invited to the victor's banquet. And then finally, mention of the sword of judgment. And this is interesting. It's the only message that gets this. Sword of judgment coming out of the mouth of Christ at both the beginning and the end of the letter. Now that's a little frightening. That's kind of ominous.

And of course, when they're reading that, I'm sure they took that seriously or would hope they did. Now, the message to the church at Thyatira, or Thyatira, you'll hear it pronounced both ways. I wasn't there, so I can't ask them. But anyway, this is very interesting. You notice it's a long message to the smallest of the seven churches. Isn't that fascinating? Here's Thater, again, it's farther inland and the line of movement moves to the southeast as you go through these. One of the reasons people have asked, how come you get that pattern of travel?

One of the reasons being, it's thought that if John would have written Revelation on the Isle of Patmos, someone would have taken the letter inland. The first place inland would have been Ephesus, right? And then as they traveled the Roman road, they would have gone up and then down the line to deliver the copies of the letter at each place.

So that's the reason for the sequence, the reason for the introduction. Some of the translations will say the angels to the seven churches, but the word is angelos, which really means messengers, someone carrying the letter. So you see, you imagine starting off going to Ephesus, maybe from Patmos to Ephesus on a boat. and there are seven messengers, and the first one takes the message to Ephesus, and then the next six keep running. And then the next one stops at Smyrna, and the next five keep running. See the sequence? So when they're finally all delivered, the last one goes to Laodicea, the last runner, the last messenger, carrying the messages to the seven churches.

Here's Augustus Caesar. He was the one who reigned when Thyatira was rebuilt after the earthquake. The principal deity there was Apollo Timneus, shown here shaking hands with the emperor. I want to point out something. We've got the picture in front of you. It's the emperor on the left, Apollo Timneus on the right. He's got that, what do you see there? It looks kind of like a crossing guard sign or something of that sort. That's a battle axe and it's a symbol of power. So here, he's shaking hands with the emperor.

The emperor is considered deity. Apollo Timneus would also be considered deity. And Apollo Timneus is having this battle axe with him, which would indicate that's a symbol of power. So it's communicating this relationship between the emperor and this deity and the power that is between them. Now, So here's the Adira.

Interestingly, there's a modern city there, so there's only about one block of the ancient city that's still accessible. Everything else is under foundations and floors and pavement and all that. This is a portion of what was left here, so part of a residential building there.

Here it is, the smallest of the seven churches, yet it has the longest letter. Are there any conclusions we could draw from that? Here you got this small church, longest letter. How about the Lord isn't measuring everything by size? Having a big mega church doesn't make it more important. Having a small church doesn't make any less important. The Lord measures things differently than what human beings are inclined to do. Sometimes a very small church may be very critical. So, really a key thing to look at. Using Hal's terminology, the Lord's not counting nickels and noses.

Here's the Adorite at a temple to Apollo Timneus, the patron deity, the son of Zeus. The head of the Greek pantheon of gods here, associated with the power of the sun, that city seal there, showed them both as deity, and having this relationship to power.

And then finally, Thader was a city of numerous craftsmen, merchants, and trade guilds. The trade guilds would act like this. The trade guilds, like let's say you were a silversmith, or a mason, The trade guilds would have their meetings, typically a monthly kind of event. They would meet in pagan temples.

And you know how we will have meetings, and it seems that public meetings is less common these days than it once was, but you'd have an invocation and a benediction. Well, they would have a similar invocation and a benediction, and the invocation and benediction would be to take what you're about to eat and put it in front of the idol. And then afterwards they'd have more sacrifices of food offered to the idols. Okay? And so here at these pagan temples with food offered to the idols, that would be where the craftsmen would meet. And so if you had been a craftsman and then became a believer, what happens?

What do you do? Can you imagine? They'd say, hey, Timotheus, we haven't seen you for months. Where have you been? I haven't seen you at our guild meetings. What's wrong? You've been okay? And then Timotheus has a little bit of explaining to do. And so that's the background to this letter. When he talks about a lot of the opportunity for compromise, the opportunity to draw, and even the economic pressure.

After a while you don't come to the meetings. And then you tell them why you don't come to the meetings. And they say, oh, well you can't be in our guild anymore. And that means you can't sell your stuff at the marketplace anymore. Sorry. And we won't sell you the materials to do what you used to do anymore.

Could be tough, huh? See, there's the background of this letter, this longest letter of the seven. to the smallest of the seven churches. Alright. There was also at these temples, of course, sacrifices of the idols and then orgies after the guild meetings. Real tough. Tough for believers to be a part of that. Lots of economic impact.

Now, here's the message to Sardis. And here's Sardis, again moving to the southeast, farther inland. Sardis, boy, has some beautiful architecture. This bathhouse that was under construction during the time that Revelation was written is time and a half the size of a football field. This is a big bathhouse. I mean, those folks were clean. Big bathhouse, right next to it, right after the book of Revelation was written.

They built a Jewish synagogue, and here's the remains of the synagogue. A lovely place with some nice remains. Phenomenal structures. They were second to none in this place. Now, here's the key thing with Sardis. Real important to the character of the letter. Follow me on this.

Off to the right side, let me point it out here because it's a little tough to see at a glance. Off on this side, over here. is the upper part of the city that was kind of built as a fortress. It was up on a plateau and there was only one little kind of strand right here where you could kind of walk up and the rest of it was all steep, steep cliffs. You couldn't get up into Sardis except for that one little place and of course if you went up there then there was a gate and it was well reinforced. Now, so it turns out Except for that one steep and winding ridge, getting up these vertical walls was a tough job. But here's the interesting background.

The upper city of Sardis saw itself as invincible. They would have military attacks over the centuries, and they'd just hold themselves up in this place with the vertical walls on almost every side, and they'd say, hey man, we're safe as can be, nobody's going to touch us here. They would even have events where they'd have one person who stayed up to watch out for the enemy that they knew was there. They're watching the enemy and they only keep one person on the wall and everybody else goes to sleep.

Hey, I'm tired. They can't touch us, so just put one person on the wall, that's it. Problem. Here's the problem. Those in the upper Sardis, the fortress, would throw garbage and animal carcasses over the edge into the deep ravine below. Okay. First part of the problem. Stinking isn't the problem. I've got a bigger one.

One clever observer among the enemy noticed that you'd get the vultures and the birds gathering around the carcasses, and if there was somebody watching on the wall in that area, the birds would land elsewhere. So if there was a gap in the ring of birds on the wall, that's where the watcher was.

So what do you do? You climb up somewhere else. So they did a military climb in the area where the one watcher wasn't. And they attacked the city while everybody else slept. So what do you see as the message to the church at Sardis? Wake up! Wake up. Strengthen the things that remain. See that? It's very specific to the character and the name of the, the character of the city and what's told to the city. Wake up. Wake up. Because you're under assault and you're sleeping. Wake up. Okay.

At Philadelphia, Here you have a message to Philadelphia in the third chapter. Here's Philadelphia, the second to the last of the seven cities that are addressed there. Philadelphia had a seal shown as the sun god here in this temple. And here's the Emperor Tiberius, one who helped Philadelphia rebuild after a 17 AD earthquake. And the city then said, oh, well, we've got to change our name.

Neo-Caesarea. New Caesar. New Caeserville, if you were to give it a sort of modern name. Neo-Caesarea would somewhat translate as New Caeserville. So they said, we'll change our name because this emperor was so good to help us get rebuilt here. Well, so he did indeed do that. During the reign of Vespasian, AD 69 to 79, who came from the Flavian family. The city showed its devotion to the emperor by calling itself Philadelphia Flavia. Ah, another new name. Very interesting.

There was also a Jewish synagogue in Philadelphia in the late 1st century, about the time when the Revelation was written. The 3rd century inscription from a nearby town also mentions a synagogue, indicating that there was a large Jewish community living there, a significant one. And according to Revelation 3 9 some members of the synagogue at Philadelphia apparently showed hostility towards Christians So this is another church where there's mention of a synagogue of Satan in the message Then what you see in reference here to the changing of its names.

What do you see about the overcomer? What's promised to the overcomer? And the in the message is there to the seven churches to this one I Back up. He who overcomes, I'll make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he will not go out from it anymore.

And I'll write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven. So focus on the name. Focus on the name. Alright. Now, the other thing is that it was a widespread custom in New Testament times when you're building a temple to look for contributors and to write the names of the contributors on the principal pillars of the temple. So, What's going to happen is, you see there, I will make you a pillar in the temple and I will write on you, whose name? My name. Why? I did the contributing. See that? I bought it. I paid for it with my life's blood. So my name will go on the temple pillars and you'll be the pillar that I'll write my name on. See that?

It's specific to the character of the city and the culture of the background. Finally, the message to Laodicea, the seventh of the churches. Laodicea is located here. Nearby Hierapolis was right across the valley. Hierapolis was, you could see, a white area. In fact, you'll see that in a picture here shortly. You can see a white area across the valley where the hot springs came from.

That's where the water came from over to Laodicea. Up the valley was Colossae where they had nice cool water coming out of the mountains. So Colossae had cool water, Hierapolis had hot water, Laodicea had the lukewarm water because they got it through a pipe from Hierapolis and the water cooled down to, not cold, but lukewarm by the time it got to Laodicea. So here's the view from Laodicea.

These are some of the blocks in the ruins of Laodicea. They're in that white area across the valley. That's Hierapolis where the hot springs are putting out hot water. Here is also a stamp. The stamp is for stamping out the identity on ISAV that Laodicea was famous for. We'll see that in a minute here. Here's a water pipe section.

This was a section of the pipe that carried the water from Hierapolis to Laodicea. pieces of pipe section, because it was a number of miles in length, carrying the water from Hierapolis to Laodicea. The water, of course, was lukewarm by the time it got there. Not cold, not hot, just lukewarm. So, although damaged by earthquakes during the reign of Augustus, and again in AD 60, the city kept rebuilding with its own funds and even prospering.

He said, we're rich. They got offers from the Roman Emperor, we'll help you. They said, nah, we don't need it. We're just rich beyond your wildest dreams. Don't worry about it. We'll cover it. They turned down the help because they said we are really rich.

Then, Laodicea was the center for regional textile industry. The sheep there produced a black wool that was soft And it got kind of a brand name, just like we have brand names in clothing now. People even wear it on the front of the shirt or wear it on the pants. It had a kind of Laodicean wool. If you had a toga from there, that was really cool. And so they thought, man, we've got a special in thing with our wool togas, and this is major cool.

People just love this stuff. So now, On top of that, Laodicea had a medical school which is famous for its eye salve. That's the little stamp I showed you earlier where they would put wax on the little container with the salve and they'd mark it. Laodicean eye salve, oh the best. Then they would mix the local clays and olive oil to get that.

And then Colossians 4, 1 through 3 mentions Laodicea. By the way, I think your handout says 3, 1 through 3, so you might want to correct that if you have that. And focuses on spiritual riches is interesting even in Paul's day Forty some odd years before this was written Paul was putting a focus on spiritual riches as he was mentioning Laodicea and It seems like several decades later. They still hadn't gotten the picture. They're still really zeroed in on their wealth So think of it.

What's the message to the Church of Laodicea. Let me back up and step through that. And this, contrary to the others, I'll read through it. The messenger to the Church of Laodicea, right, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, says this, I know your deeds and you're neither hot nor cold.

Here's the mention of the temperature. I wish that you were hot, cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, just like the water that came in the pipe from Hierapolis, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Ever been really thirsty and then get a cup of lukewarm water? If that's what you got, you'll drink it. But if you have a chance to get a cup of real cold water, that's better. People typically want to drink something that's either hot or cold. Lukewarm isn't what you choose.

So that's the reference there. Because you say, I am rich. Ah, where did we hear that before? For decades, they've been telling everybody, we're so rich, man, we don't need anybody's help. We're just doing great. Because you say I'm rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing. You do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind.

Here's the ISAV. Okay. And naked, here's the fancy clothing that they're famous for. Okay. Naked I advise you to buy from me gold spiritual gold, okay? Gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, but wait a minute. We are rich. Oh, no Okay, you don't understand you need to make a trade-off here So you may become rich and White garments remember what was the color of their?

They had black wool so white garments Okay, so here's again a focus on that. So that you may clothe yourself. Wait a minute, we've got world famous black, you know, garments. No, white garments, white garments of righteousness. And that the shame of your nakedness, oh boy, there's the focus on the clothing again. will not be revealed.

And I salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I salve, man, we sell gobs of that stuff. What do you mean? Ah, we're talking about something different here. Something for spiritual eye problems, not the physical kind. To anoint your eyes so that you may see.

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me. Now, is this written to Christians or non-Christians? Christians. So, behold, I stand at the door and knock is not an invitation to salvation. I'm not saying that it might not be some value in presenting that to people, but typically it's thought of in that sense when the reality is this, he's talking to Christians.

He says, hey, I want to fellowship with you, but you're holding me to the outside. Why? Because you're holding on to your own riches as your resource. You're holding on to what you think you see. You're holding on to what you own and what you're proud of and what you have to sell. And you need to understand that I want to come in and fellowship with you. And all that you're holding on to, all that you're claiming of this world, is only keeping you from seeing and having the fellowship that I offer.

So he says, he overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with me on my throne. What does that sound like? Ephesians 2.6, right? We've been seated in the heavenlies. Positionally, it's already there. He's just saying, in your condition, in your condition, here's the invitation. And as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

See that? So much of this letter, it just relates directly to the background of the church. If you did not understand the background of that city, so many of the things in here would be like, huh? Why is he saying that? But when you understand the background, all of a sudden the letter comes alive.

You begin to see why this challenge of You know, you say you're rich, but you're poor. You say that you see, but you're blind. You say that you're well-clothed, but you're naked. And you need my white robe, not the black ones you've got. It all fits. Every bit of it fits. The lukewarm water, unlike Hierapolis with the hot water, unlike Colossae with the cold water, yours is lukewarm. Because you are spiritually lukewarm, He says, I'll spit you out of my mouth. I don't want lukewarmness. Not looking for that. So here's Laodicea, the last of those seven churches. So here's the grouping of them. Today there is not a church at any one of those places. All gone. Yeah. Not a church in existence anywhere.

Something to think about is, you know, we live in an era, and you've probably even been hearing it over this last few weeks, we live in an era where Christianity is being pushed to the background and the periphery. You've been seeing that? We don't want to in our parade. We don't want any mention. I was talking to one person who had kids in the school and they said, you know, school, they can't even have a Christmas holiday. They can't even have, you know, can't even have Halloween. We can't have anything. We have fall celebration and winter celebration and spring celebration and that's it. And so they're just kind of shoving things off to the perimeter, it's no longer Merry Christmas, it's Happy Holidays. You figure out why they're happy, but okay. There is a tendency to shove things off to the periphery in truth, while it's a sad commentary on our culture. These places, the believers there had no opportunity to express their faith openly.

Compared to what we have even now with the tendency to try to shove Christianity off to the edges to the sides So it is an amazing and I think valuable contrast for us to look at What kind of a culture are we headed towards? And how should the Christians behave and what will be the issues?

You're seeing them right here in these messages that the seven churches We may not have a specific background in each case, but we get the message. We understand what the message is, and how does the church deal with that increasingly pagan culture that we're seeing in our own culture. So there's some valuable stuff in here, in these messages to the seven churches.

Alright, that finishes the Bible backgrounds, and some of you I know were from the spiritual growth elective downstairs, so this is quite a shift for you. Thanks for joining us. We kind of run a little bit low, but we have a CD that has all the Bible background slides and handouts, and feel free to take that. We run out on the Bible timeline, but there's how to study the Bible, and feel free to take some of the fold-out pamphlets on that. They're brief, but information-dense, And well presented I think and in a sort of a laminated fashion, so it'll hold up Feel free to help yourself to that questions Yeah Yeah I have heard that.

I personally am inclined to say that that's not the case, and there's a few reasons why. One is there's nothing in the letters or messages that indicate that those represent time periods. Another is that for the various people that do teach that, they each seem to have different, you know, stops and starts to the time period. In the actual context, we see that it actually fits each of the churches historically. And so that seems to fit to make a double meaning that it fits some time period seems to be superfluous. It's kind of laid on top because we know it fits each historic church at the end of the first century so well that that would be something else laid on top. that isn't represented.

If you read through the chapter 2 and 3, you don't see something that says these are time periods. Another reason is because that particular teaching started around the year 1200, not with, but with a group that was begun by St. Francis of Assisi, so it's basically a Roman Catholic origin, well over a thousand years after the New Testament was completed. That was the first mention that we have of it. So anyway, for those several reasons, I personally am not inclined to follow it or teach that, although it is commonly taught. Here's one more, and that is that the truth is, while these are supposed to represent different time periods according to the theory, you could find modern churches right now that fit any one of those seven. churches in terms of characteristic.

Ephesus, for example, was very orthodox but cold, left its first love. Laodicea was in great riches. Well, are there not churches today that are very poor? So what you find is that there are representatives of the kinds of churches at pretty much any period of time. And that in truth now, there are some great churches that are in places where they have very little physically, and so they don't fit the Laodicean church.

So it's, I would say, an artificial match, because what they end up doing in order to match that with the time period is they pick a portion of the church that it fits, when in reality, the church throughout all of time has always had a spectrum of churches that fit these seven.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. There are some good Bible teachers that do follow that and teach that. Those are the reasons why I don't particularly follow it. I think there's plenty of meaning and significance without going there, and it's best to stick with that. Other questions? Thoughts?

Okay. Feel free to have at what we've got. If we've run out of something you're interested, let me know. There was also a stack of Bible timeline pamphlets similar to this How to Study the Bible, and I'll get some more of those so that those are available for you. Trying to figure out how to make them. We'll meet in here next week.

The Church History and Bible Backgrounds class will be consolidating into a study of Acts. This has been largely, you know, PowerPoint slides and sort of lecture with occasionally some interaction, similar for Church History. Both those classes will be different. Acts will be very much interactive and you'll have homework. So very different in format.

And we'll give the first two weeks' material next week to those. If you've been involved in another one of the electives, we encourage you to stick with it. And especially those we're talking to that have been going through the class downstairs, I'd say stay with it. This is just an exception because of Mike's illness.

All right? Thoughts, questions, comments? Let's pray. Feel free to talk to me afterwards. Lord, as we've looked at these things, indeed the richness of your word is abundant. And in truth, we could study it our entire lives and still not reach its depths. how infinite and how deep the truth you've given us. We thank you for that. Thank you for the abundant blessings that we have in you and can count upon. In Christ, in the heavenlies, in Jesus' name, amen.