Revelation’s Seven Churches and Us Today

Read: Revelation 2-3, Jesus speaking to the seven churches of Asia

1. Ephesus – hard at work but not for the original purpose to which they were entrusted. They had lost their first love, that love that was found when they placed their faith and trust in Jesus.
2. Smyrna – a suffering church that would see things worsen but the promise of a better day was ahead of them as long as they remained faithful.
3. Pergamum – A church that was steadfast in the face of persecution. Yet, they had allowed false teachings to ease into their thinking and did not put it out.
4. Thyatira – a servant church showing love and faith. However, they had allowed the world to creep into their fellowship and some had even participated in activities that were not acceptable (see Acts 15 and the letter to the Gentile believers)
5. Sardis – We might call this church a “zombie church”, having the appearance of a living vibrant church and yet, dead on the inside. They put on a good show but there was nothing underneath to support them for the long run. Teaching had become just an exercise with nothing in it.
6. Philadelphia – Here is a church that looks like they don’t have much, probably poorly funded and seemingly weak. Yet, they were faithful through adversity and kept moving regardless of their circumstances.
7. Laodicea – There are some churches where the term “church” need not apply. They appear in name only but have nothing to show for their efforts. This is a church that has funding, resources and people but no reason to exist. “Neither hot nor cold” speaks to their heart. They have no concern for those on the inside or outside. If I were to guess, they probably drift along with whatever is popular at the moment, anchored to nothing.

Jesus addresses the concerns, all but one church had things to fix their eyes on that were considered good. Five had problems that needed to be addressed and two were standing fast in the face of an evil world set against them. This is a high level fly over of these churches and certainly we can dig deeper into each one. (We should do that so that we can learn more about what Jesus is saying.) However, for the sake of this writing, we just need to see where we are as Christ followers, joined in a fellowship of believers. Are we holding on to our first love? This is the love that we had for Jesus when He first called us His own. Are we seeking the truth of His word while rooting out those things that would be found contrary to His teaching? Are we identifying sin within the church or is our attention so focused on what the world is doing wrong that we are allowing sin to remain and gain a stronghold within our fellowship? Are we just going through the motions and Jesus isn’t even in our efforts? Perhaps we think we are better off than we really are and act as if we don’t even need Jesus to function. Jesus commended those who were remaining faithful in spite of their circumstances. Regardless of what the world was saying or doing, they stayed steadfast. For some, things were going to get worse before they got better and for others, they would be free from the coming suffering. Either way, they would remain close to Jesus and not look at what was going on around them as a reason to stumble or quit.

I had planned to start with a different topic when re-launching this blog. But, while listening to the ladies Sunday school class talk, with such passion, about their study in Revelation, I felt this might be a better topic. They had been discussing the seven churches and it occurred to me that we should all take some time to see what was written. One reason for this discussion is that these churches were not long established churches like we see around here. They weren’t 200-300 years old (or older if you are in Europe, Asia and beyond). Today we see churches spring up and passionate people in them and before long, these letters could be written about them as well. How do we end up like this? We let the cares of this life, concerns for us and our families and so many other things creep in and consume us. We take our eyes off of the path ahead of us and wander off. Sometimes we were never rooted in Jesus to start. We might have had an emotional experience but never placed our faith and trust in Him who can deliver us to the Father.

So we must start from the beginning. Have you, as the reader, ever surrendered yourself to God, in Christ? If not, perhaps God is speaking to you right now. He is the one that does the calling. I am merely a messenger. When we read Genesis 1-2, we get a picture of how God put all this together and created man to be His image bearer. God built us as relational people, first to Him and second to others. We see God in the garden walking with man. This love has continued throughout time. Paul tells us that while we are separated from God, He loved us enough to send His Son to be the one perfect sacrifice for us to restore our fellowship with the Father. We have to understand that we cannot do anything on our own to earn favor with God. In fact, our efforts to do so are just an extension of our own sinful pride. God is not impressed. So what do we do? Peter said we must “repent and believe”. Repenting is admitting our sinfulness and turning in the opposite direction. Believing is trusting that God is true and what Jesus did is exactly what He did, period. The Father takes care of everything else. We bring nothing to the table.

If we want to know “what’s wrong with this world?”, we have to understand that we rejected God and continue that rejection today. We desire to be in control of our own lives and only want God to intervene when things go bad (which they usually do, by the way). We will be diving into this thought more as we move along. But for now, God is calling us to repentance and following Jesus. Let us hear from Him today and do just that.

For now, let us review a thought. Maybe we think we are good enough already. Maybe we believe we don’t really need God, or any supreme being for that matter. Because we can’t fully understand God, we make the assumption that we are smart enough to go it alone. Perhaps we even consider ourselves good. We love people, some more than others. We do good and charitable things. We rush to the aid of people in distress. These are all noble thoughts and actions. However, we are still human, with this human nature. Over the next few writings, we will explore man’s nature and the flaws in our human thinking.

In His name,

Scott