Faith & Love: A One Year Bible Reading Plan - Part 12Sample

When we look at Revelation Chapter 2, we see letters written to actual churches. The overseer of the church is probably the leader or the bishop of the church, written to as the angel of that church.

But what we like to do in the Book of Revelation is to extract the absolutes. To answer the "so what?" question. For instance, when he writes to the church in Ephesus, he says, I know your works, I know your toil, your patient endurance, and you've tested those who call themselves apostles, who are not. I know that you’re enduring patiently. So he's saying, congratulations, guys. He acknowledges that to lead and to build and be part of a church community in a challenging world obviously puts a demand on people, and it asks for endurance. But then he says a very famous statement in Revelation 2:4 "I have this against you that you have abandoned the love that you had at first."

So, the general principle is that we cannot get involved in church activity at the cost of our relationship with God. Maybe a second example is the church in Smyrna. "I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich." There's this general principle that the values of those of us in the Kingdom of God are not connected to what we have or what we don't have. And though there’s tribulation and poverty, we know that in Christ we have the riches of eternity. Maybe to the next church in Pergamum, verse 14, it says, I have a few things against you, some of those who hold the teaching of Balaam and it has to do with food and sacrifices to idols and sexual immorality. And some of you are holding to the teachings of the Nicolaitians.

And so what we see here is that these different voices in general in the church could come in and veer us off course of the pure focus on Jesus Christ. And that's true for us today also as we live our lives. The last one that I want to use as an example is the church in Thyatira. "I know your works, your love, your faith, your service, your patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. I have this against you that you tolerate this woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality." So, what we see here is it cannot be possible that this high spirituality comes at the cost of morality. The fruit of the spirit is important with the gifts of the spirit. Those are the principles that we extract and focus on the absolutes in the Book of Revelation.