30 Jun Revelation For The 1st Century
The book of Revelation is apocalyptic – full of symbols – and at times hard to understand. But not all of it. The part of the book of Revelation which is written in plain language is actually the component where John is told to write a letter to seven churches. Those churches were a part of the Roman province of Asia, which is not the continent of Asia, but Asia Minor of today, that is more or less the nation of Turkey.
John was told in plain language that the vision he saw was to be sent to those seven churches. Included in that letter was a small brief note for each of them. Those brief notes are found in chapters 2 and 3 of the book where each of the seven churches is specifically addressed. These are the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Also, in regards to the content of the letter, John is told that the vision he has was a “revelation of Jesus Christ” and contained things “soon to happen.”
Given that it was for churches that existed at that time, and about events that were immediately to occur, it makes sense that it had a context for that time and place. The symbols can be interpreted with the bible as an aid and applying to back then.
But even though that was 1900 years ago, it still contains spiritual meaning for us, but in general is not about our future or the end of the world. At Peace (the church I pastor at) we have produced a 22 part video series on the book of Revelation based on this idea. Here is the first of those videos. By the time you have watched even the first few, you’ll start to get a sense of how biblical it is to see Revelation in its NT context.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7uWSWOJtRmP6a6jSEAH7YDJPz4BsRbZR