The Seven Churches of Revelation, also known as the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse and the Seven Churches of Asia, are seven major churches of early Christianity, as mentioned in the New Testament Book of Revelation. All of them are located in Asia Minor, present-day Turkey.
According to Revelation 1:11, on the Greek island of Patmos, Jesus Christ instructs John of Patmos to: "Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven Churches: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea." [1] The churches in this context refers to the community or local congregations of Christians living in each city. [2] [3]
The seven churches are named for their locations. The Book of Revelation provides descriptions of each Church.
The letters follow a common pattern. For example: the Lord first addresses each church and identifies Himself, [4] then defines things that He knows about the church in question. [5] After this, a challenge or reproach is given, [6] followed by a promise. [7] In all seven cases the admonition is included, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches", [8] although sometimes this comes before the promise and sometimes after.
Although the letters differ in length in accord with the needs of each community, all conclude with an appeal to hold fast and to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Each church is promised that everyone who conquers will be rewarded by Christ.
Some historicists typically interpret the seven churches as representing seven different periods in the history of the Western Church from the time of Paul until the return of Jesus Christ. [9] Scofield states that "these messages by their very terms go beyond the local assemblies mentioned." [10] He is of the opinion that the letters have a prophetic purpose disclosing the seven phases of the spiritual history of the Church. Other writers, such as Clarence Larkin, [11] Henry Hampton Halley, [12] Merrill Unger, [13] and William M. Branham [14] also have posited the view that the seven churches preview the history of the global Church.
Historicism has been criticized by the Eastern Orthodox priest Dimitri Cozby, who writes that historicists take a greatly oversimplified view of church history: "Since dispensationalism is Protestant in origin its 'Church history' is strictly Western. The dispensations take into account almost nothing of Orthodox history after the period of the early councils which we share with the West." [15]
Chapters 2–3 of the Revelation have specific messages for each of the seven angels of the seven churches. The message of each of the seven letters is directed to the angel of the particular church that is mentioned.
Origen [16] explains that these "angels" are the guardian angels of the churches, a view upheld by Henry Alford. But Epiphanius [17] explicitly rejects this view, and, in accordance with the imagery of the passage, explains it as the bishops.
John sees a vision of the Son of man, who walks among seven lampstands and has seven stars in his right hand. Revelation 1:20 states that "The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches." The comparison of a teacher to a star is scriptural. [18]
Augustine of Hippo's reason for interpreting angels of the churches as the prelates of the church is that St. John speaks of them as falling from their first charity, which is not true of the angels. [19] [20] Others would say that the falling away relates to the churches, not to the messengers, as each of the seven letters conclude with the words "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
The Amplified Bible states that Revelation 2:2 through to 3:18, "your" and "you" are in the singular, referring to the angel of each church. Much of what is said is rebuke and admonishment, so if the angels are heavenly beings, they may serve in some way as representatives of the sinful people in their churches. Jewish tradition maintained that every nation and individual has a guardian angel, and that when God is about to punish a nation, He first punishes its angel. There is even a story of Michael, the guardian angel of Israel, being rebuked by God for the sins committed in the time of Ezekiel. [ citation needed ] So the original readers of Revelation might have assumed that the angels here are the guardian angels of the individual churches, sharing responsibility for the actions of the members.
In the New Testament, the Greek word for angels ( άγγελος ) is not only used for heavenly angels, but also used for human messengers, such as John the Baptist (Matthew 11:10, Mark 1:2, Luke 7:27) and God's prophets (Revelation 22:8–9) [21] C.I. Scofield has noted that "The natural explanation of the 'messengers' is that they were men sent by the seven churches to ascertain the state of the aged apostle ... but they figure any who bear God's messages to a church." [22]
In 1869, the London publishing firm Sampson Low, Son, and Marston published Alexander Svoboda's The Seven Churches of Asia. [23] The Seven Churches of Asia is divided into three primary sections: an introduction written by English clergyman and Biblical scholar H. B. Tristram, Svoboda's personal travel account visiting the Seven Churches sites, and an itinerary detailing Svoboda's route. The book also includes twenty full-page photographs of the Seven Churches sites, photographed by Svoboda. These images are the first produced and published photographs of the Seven Churches. Photographs from Svoboda's Seven Churches project were exhibited in the rooms of the Arundel Society in London in 1868. [24]
The Hebrew term Abaddon, and its Greek equivalent Apollyon appear in the Bible as both a place of destruction and an angel of the abyss. In the Hebrew Bible, abaddon is used with reference to a bottomless pit, often appearing alongside the place Sheol, meaning the resting place of dead peoples.
The Book of Revelation or Book of the Apocalypse is the final book of the New Testament. Written in Koine Greek, its title is derived from the first word of the text: apokalypsis, meaning 'unveiling' or 'revelation'. The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic book in the New Testament canon. It occupies a central place in Christian eschatology.
Christian eschatology is a minor branch of study within Christian theology which deals with the doctrine of the "last things", especially the Second Coming of Christ, or Parousia. Eschatology – the word derives from two Greek roots meaning "last" (ἔσχατος) and "study" (-λογία) – involves the study of "end things", whether of the end of an individual life, of the end of the age, of the end of the world, or of the nature of the Kingdom of God. Broadly speaking, Christian eschatology focuses on the ultimate destiny of individual souls and of the entire created order, based primarily upon biblical texts within the Old and New Testaments. Christian eschatology looks to study and discuss matters such as death and the afterlife, Heaven and Hell, the Second Coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the rapture, the tribulation, millennialism, the end of the world, the Last Judgment, and the New Heaven and New Earth in the world to come.
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians.
Thyateira was the name of an ancient Greek city in Asia Minor, now the modern Turkish city of Akhisar, Manisa Province. The name is probably Lydian. It lies in the far west of Turkey, south of Istanbul and almost due east of Athens. It is about 50 miles (80 km) from the Aegean Sea.
Archangels are the second-lowest rank of angel in the Christian hierarchy of angels, put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 5th or 6th century in his book De Coelesti Hierarchia. The word "archangel" itself is usually associated with the Abrahamic religions, but beings that are very similar to archangels are found in a number of other religious traditions.
Dispensationalism is a theological framework of interpreting the Bible which maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or "dispensations" in which God acts with his chosen people in different ways. It is often distinguished from covenant theology. These are two competing frameworks of Biblical Theology that attempt to explain the continuity of the Bible as a whole. The term "dispensationalism" is attributed to Philip Mauro, a critic of the system's teachings in his 1928 book The Gospel of the Kingdom.
The catholic epistles are seven epistles of the New Testament. Listed in order of their appearance in the New Testament, the catholic epistles are:
The events of Revelation are the events that occur in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. An outline follows below, chapter by chapter.
The concept of Seven Archangels is found in some works of early Jewish literature and in Christianity. In those texts, they are referenced as the angels who serve God directly.
Lydia of Thyatira is a woman mentioned in the New Testament who is regarded as the first documented convert to Christianity in Europe. Several Christian denominations have designated her a saint.
In the Book of Revelation, the two witnesses are two prophets who are mentioned in Revelation 11:1-14. Some Christians interpret this as two people, two groups of people, or two concepts. Some believe they are Enoch and Elijah, as in the Gospel of Nicodemus, since they are the only two that did not see death as required by the Scriptures, while others believe them to be Moses and Elijah because they appeared during the transfiguration of Jesus, or because Enoch was not Abraham's descendant. They have the power to shut the heavens (Elijah) and turn water into blood (Moses).
The Beast may refer to one of three beasts described in the Book of Revelation.
In the Bible, the term Seven Spirits of God appears four times in the Book of Revelation. The meaning of this term has been interpreted in multiple ways.
John's vision of the Son of Man, also known as John’s Vision of Christ, is a vision described in the Book of Revelation in which the author, identified as John, sees a person he describes as one "like the Son of Man". The Son of Man is portrayed in this vision as having a robe with a golden sash, white hair, eyes like blazing fire, feet like bronze and a voice like rushing waters. He holds seven stars in his right hand and has a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. The vision is interpreted by Christians as the only identifiable physical description of Jesus in any form in the Christian biblical canon.
Revelation 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author is a point of academic debate. This chapter contains the prologue of the book, followed by the vision and commission of John.
The canon of the New Testament is the set of books many modern Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible. For most churches, the canon is an agreed-upon list of 27 books that includes the canonical Gospels, Acts, letters attributed to various apostles, and Revelation.
Revelation 2 is the second chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. This chapter contains messages to churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum and Thyatira, four of the seven churches of Asia located in modern-day Turkey, with messages for the other three churches appearing in chapter 3.
Revelation 8 is the eighth chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate.
Revelation 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. This chapter includes the hymn of Moses and the Lamb and introduces the seven angels who appear with seven plagues.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Apocalypse". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
