Josh Hamrick

OK, so this title isn’t at all true, but it looked better than “My Random and Very Un-sure look into the book of Revelation!”  I am in the middle of digging into the book to see if there is anyway to come to it with no preconceived ideas, and see what conclusions we come to. I’ll ask questions, draw conclusions, get things wrong…all while hopefully avoiding heresy. So, let’s begin with Revelation Chapter 1: (click the link to read along with me!)

The first thing I notice is this passage in 1:4 :

To the seven churches in the province of Asia.

We have to keep that idea in mind throughout the reading of this book. Right here at the first, John let’s us know who this book is written to – seven actual churches in Asia.  I have seen this spiritualized to mean 1,000 different things, but I see no way that it means anything other than what it says. We must view everything else through those eyes, the eyes of those original readers in the 7 first century churches of Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

The next thing I want to point out is in verse 12:

When I turned I saw seven gold lampstands, ¹³and among the lampstands was One like the Son of Man,

First, the 7 lampstands seem oddly similar to the 7 churches, so i’m thinking it is representative. This is confirmed in verse 20:

²⁰ The secret  of the seven stars you saw in My right hand, and of the seven gold lampstands, is this: the seven stars are the angels  of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands  are the seven churches.

The One like the Son of Man referenced is none other than Jesus, which echos Daniel 7:13. I find it very interesting that Jesus here is among the churches. These churches are later shown to be quite flawed, but this is still the way Jesus shows up. Then is verse 16 you get the stars, which we already know are the angels for the 7 churches, and a two edged sword coming out of His mouth. This phrase also refers to the Word of God in Hebrews 4:12.

So that’s it for Chapter 1. The main conclusion I draw is that Revelation is a book written to 7 first century churches. Please feel free to comment, ask questions, and tell me where I am wrong. I’ll do these as often as possible, and cover a chapter each time.