Letter to Seven Churches-Lent 2, 2022

Continuing on, in Revelation 1:4-5, it is written, “John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

How simple is this! It’s a letter with an address label. To: 7 churches. From: God the Father, (arguably to complete the Trinity and symbolized as perfect 7) the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ. John is simply the commissioned scribe.

The contents of the letters to the 7 churches are being given to John. “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in My right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” (Revelation 1:19-20)

What you have seen (past), what is now (present), and what will take place later (future). Scripture is that way. It’s history. It’s instruction for today. It’s prophecy.

Not completely a form letter to each of the 7 churches although they all follow a pattern, the contents can be found in Revelation 2:1-3:22. Jesus walks among the churches and the angels are there, too. Jesus sees what’s going on. So, He sends—to varying degrees and personalization—His words of praise and encouragement, caution and warning, and words of displeasure and judgment.

Thoughts for today:

Read aloud Revelation 2:1-3:22.

Jesus and His angels are among the churches today. What do you think they see? Faithful witnesses and persecuted believers? People who are Sunday club churchgoers unless there’s football or basketball on TV, or a child’s sports league, or breakfast out, or a bike ride on a nice day?

If Jesus were to write a letter to your church, what would He write about its witness and perseverance?

Most of the churches among the 7 (which are thought to be actual churches of Asia Minor, BTW) had bad stuff going on. There were two churches about which Jesus had only praise: Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-10) and Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13). What can you learn about how to live from these two positive examples? What cautions should we take from the rest of them?

How many of them had work to do? (Trick question).

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2022 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.