John's Interpretation Of The Book Of Revelation

No part of the Bible and its interpretation is more controversial than the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is the last insightful book in the New Testament. It delivers the significant purpose of Christianity by describing God’s plan for the world and His final judgment of the people by reinforcing the importance of faith and the idea of Christianity as a whole. This book was written by John in 95 or 96 AD. This book talks about what is to come, what has been already witnessed, and what is the outcome and result of our past actions is the central focus of the content in Revelation. It has been criticized, endlessly dissected and examined by so many to understand its purpose and to interpret the meaning behind every specific vision

and meaning behind the words written.
The seven churches that John wrote to were: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

These seven churches were very close together geographically in Asia. He wrote these letters to the Churches because he felt he had a close relationship with them. The Churches were planted when Paul was on his first and second missionary. The seven Churches were to be well structured and they all follow the same pattern and there are several things in common between each letter to these churches: a greeting for each church, a different name for Jesus is used in each one, who is dictating the letters to the seven churches, criticisms for each individual church except for two-Smyrna and Philadelphia, warnings and instructions were in the letters to the churches as well. Of all the seven churches, Laodicea is the only church that Christ did not commend for anything (it as called the complacent

church).
The overall message for these seven churches are: Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7): Don’t lose your love for God’s truth or His people; Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11): Remain faithful in the face of tribulation and poverty; Pergamum (Revelation 2:12-17): Resist Satan’s influence, even to death, if necessary; Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-29): Resist false teaching; Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6): Remain zealous and pure in conduct; Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13): Persevere and walk through the doors God opens; Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22): Don’t become lukewarm about God’s way of life.
The church Ephesus was a hard working group, who did not tolerate wickedness; they were patient during hard times and knew how to identify the false teachers/prophets.

But Christ also knew that they eventually lost their passion for Christ, so is message to them was to repent. This church also served as the center for John’s ministry at the end of the first century. The church of Smyrna had a lot of physical suffering but they were rich in spiritual wealth, that no one could take away (Matthew 6:20). This church really did not have any failures, however Jesus did warn them that they will be persecuted but also gave them a message of hope to remain faithful. The church of Pergamum was located in a difficult place, surrounded by pagan influences, yet they held fast to Christ’s name and did not deny Him during difficult times. Jesus commended them on their positive actions because of this but they were not without sin. His message to them was simple, to repent. The church of Thyatira was very loyal to Christ and refused to deny Him. But this church was also engaging in sexual immorality and dabbling in idolatry through the woman called Jezebel. Jesus told them to repent and to hold fast to their faith until His

return.
The church of Sardis was technically spiritually dead, they may have had a good reputation, but they were spiritually lifeless. This church had people in it that were unsaved and just going through the motions of religion. Jesus’ message to them was to strengthen what little faith they had left.
The church of Philadelphia- is a church that had remained faithful in difficult times but was weak in certain aspects. Jesus did promise them an open door to His blessings. This church didn’t look good on the outside, looks weak, but was a strong church. Jesus said He will make sure His believers in that church would be victorious over its enemies. The church of Laodicea claimed to be rich but was anything but that when it came to the Lord. Jesus had nothing to commend them for because they only believed they were rich due to material things. His message to them was to repent and to seek Him out for spiritual riches and to overcome their blindness to the Lord’s message-they may share in share Christ’s future kingdom.
I believe there are several lessons that today’s churches can learn from these letters. First, they need to overcome their fear of what they don’t understand and trust in the Lord. Second, overall God knows what goes on in His churches/congregations-an individual, in the Lord’s eyes, will not be punished for what someone else did. Lastly, we need to be a true and faithful church that God wants to bless and not a church that God will have nothing to do with in the end. There are so many more lessons, but these stand out to me. The bottom line, the message to these seven churches can be warning and advice to Christians throughout the modern day world at any given time. We need to make sure we try and listen to all of these messages and let Christ be the judge.