Read with Me
Revelation 1:9-11 (HCSB)
I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation, kingdom, and endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of God’s word and the testimony about Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard a loud voice behind me like a trumpet saying, “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”
Listen with Me
John again identifies himself as a scribe of this circular letter. Verse 11 makes it clear that he was not the author of the letter, but only a scribe. And it makes it equally clear that he was not designing a narrative or encoding a secret message to the Church. His assignment was merely to write down accurately what he was shown.
John was not writing from a safe haven, sitting above the fray in which the Church was then embroiled. He himself was suffering for the sake of the gospel along with them. He had been arrested, beaten, and tortured for the sake of the gospel over many long years of ministry. And he was now on the island of Patmos in exile, away from all support and encouragement.
The vision that came to John came to him on “the Lord’s day”, or Sunday on our modern calendars. This was the day that Christians had set aside for worship and edification in recognition that this first day of the week was a day on which Jesus had risen from the dead (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).
On that day, John’s mind would naturally have been drawn back more than sixty years to that amazing, confusing, and ultimately completely miraculous day. He would have thought about all the successes and sufferings that he himself and the Church in general had gone through, including the fact that all the other original apostles had already met death at the hands of those opposed to the gospel.
Now, the whole Church existed under the dark cloud of a rapidly expanding persecution, and he wondered what the near future would hold for all of them. Was this the end? Was Jesus going to return at long last and put a final end to all the evil in the world? Would he live long enough to see it, or would he die on this desolate island and be resurrected at the sound of the trumpet of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)?
So many questions! But into his mind and heart there suddenly rang out a loud commandment. He was to take a scroll and write in it all that was going to be shown to him. He was then to send that scroll as a circular letter to the seven churches in the province of Asia: Ephesus, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea, to instruct them, comfort them, admonish them, and to help them to stand firm as they waited for God’s deliverance.
Pray with Me
Father, we are so far removed from all these events historically that it is sometimes hard for us to imagine a 90-year-old John worshiping You alone on an island, and having many of the same questions that some Christians are asking themselves today. But John never saw himself as a mighty saint, somehow standing above the mess of trying to be the Church in a hostile world. He saw himself as just a man, saved and transformed by the love of God and the Holy Spirit, who lived his life to help as many more as possible to experience that same transformation. And at that moment, he was tired, he was discouraged, and he had legitimate questions for You that he did not know the answers to. Thank you, Lord, that You showed him many answers that day, and then helped him to accurately record them for our benefit and enlightenment. Amen.