Seven churches of Revelation
In 2013, Cathi and I toured Turkey visiting the sites of the seven churches of the Book of Revelation. Cathi is pictured standing in one of the main streets of Ephesus which is believed to have been the mother church. The seven churches were all fairly close to each other, within a 200 km radius. Now there is nothing to see but ruins and rocks. There are no churches or signs of Christianity in any of these places now. However, these letters to the seven churches were real places, real churches in the 1st century.
The key to understanding our churches today and what problems they have is to look at these seven letters to see what we can learn. What we discover is that Jesus had some good things to say and some bad things to say about each of the churches which you can view on the handy chart that I have included below.
He wanted them to be encouraged but also to listen and to repent and change their ways if they needed to. There are similar lessons for the church today. One of the main things to learn from these letters is that God is speaking to the churches/local churches. He is speaking to all the churches, not just the seven churches because not one of those churches exists today.
Seven churches are a picture of churches in existence today
Paul started the church in Ephesus and maybe the other churches were satellite churches started by Ephesus. There were other churches in the region. Only 7 km away from Laodicea was Colossae. So these seven churches were chosen for a reason by the Holy Spirit. I believe that these churches are a representation of the different kinds of churches in existence today. I do not hold to the prophetic view where each church listed in order represents a historical time period beginning with Ephesus in the 1st century ending with Laodicea in the 21st century. One of the reasons is that we know that all churches are a mixture of good points and weaknesses just like the seven original churches in Asia Minor.
These letters tell us about what was good in the churches where they had gone wrong and what they needed to do to rectify the problems but Jesus had also instructed all of them to be overcomers at the conclusion of each one of the seven letters. But the New Testament also establishes that there will be three kinds of responses by today’s Christians at the end: those who fall away;1 those who take refuge;2 and those who refuse the mark but are severely persecuted but make it to the end (Who are the elect in the Olivet Discourse?) or are martyred (tribulation saints). Really this last group can be divided into two parts: those who make it through 1290 days and those who die.3 Christians alive today will fit into one of these three categories in the last period of church history in the final seven years if they make it that far. Some will fall away on account of deception and persecution and they will relent and take the mark of the beast. Others will heed the warning and flee to the designated wilderness refuge explained in Revelation chapter 12. And some will stand strong despite their reluctance to flee and will be either persecuted or even perhaps martyred as a consequence of refusing the mark. There will also be those who will make a decision to turn to Christ during the last 3 ½ years during that horrific period. These will manage to escape the clutches of the Antichrist and his forces and will be part of the elect who are gathered and raptured after the tribulation of those days4 with the Woman of Revelation 12 where the eagles gather.5
However, if you are a Christian right now the overriding question is, which one of the three categories will you fall into? It all depends upon your response when things get really tough and whether you take seriously the warnings given in the Bible.
Philadelphia church makes it to the safe place
My take is that the church that really makes it is the one that emulates the Philadelphia church and I believe they are the only church that manages to heed the warning and make it to the safe place. They will be spared the ‘hour of trial’ that is about to come upon the whole earth.
