I will deal with the first charge by examining if the letters in Revelation 2-3 have only one purpose for one audience.

First: These are real churches with real problems and the letters were addressed to each of them. They contained warning or praise and the encouragement to either correct or carry on. This was important to the life of these specific local bodies and that’s why Christ tells John to write to them (Rev 1:20).

Second: The seven churches weren’t meant to receive only their respective letters but also the letters of the other churches since the book traveled as a whole. This isn’t a matter to update one church on the doings of the other six but it does seem to indicate that Christ is warning all seven (Rev 2:11, 23) with the warnings of the other seven. The problems in Ephesus could just as easily be the problems in Philadelphia: so he who has an ear let him hear.

Third: The book opens with the Lord speaking addressing the contents of the book to these seven churches (Rev 1:11) followed by a vision. The Lord explains the vision (Rev 1:20) by saying he stands in the midst of these seven churches (not more churches, as I mentioned in Point 3) and capped off with the words “write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things” (Rev 1:17) and then an explanation of Christ in the midst of The Seven Churches (Rev 1:19).

As stated,  the book was to travel as a whole. It would not only be seen by Pergamos, Smyrna, Thyatira, Ephesus, Philadelphia, Laodicea,  and Sardis—it would also be seen by Corinth, Philippi, Colossae, Thessalonica, Jerusalem and Antioch.

Does the Church of Jerusalem not have a lamp stand (Matt 5:14)? Is it only these churches to the exclusion of all others? Are all other churches immune from the dangers that these seven are being warned about?

The warning of Rev 2:23 then applies to all local bodies showing the possibility of error (and proper activity) by each local body.

Fourth: If we were to stop for a moment and, with the knowledge that this book is to travel as a whole in our back pocket, consider all of history since the writing of the letter and noticing how the church started to operate (not only as local bodies but as a region wide entity with certain color across those regions and space) then we see that the application can transcend the local bodies. The Church of the first century (generally) functioned exceedingly differently from the Church in the fourth century and both are very different from the Church of the sixteenth and twenty first century, respectively.

In other words, generally speaking, even with a sticky history, the Church across time has, as a whole, acted in different ways and has participated in some of the very activities that some of these local bodies were warned of.

Indeed, the letters speak of judgment (Rev 2:5, 16: 3:3, 16), near-future events (Rev 2:10,22 ) and distant future events (Rev 2:17,23, 25-28; 3:4-5, 9, 10-12, 21). The local churches of yesteryear may long be gone—but the speaking of future events remains.

I’m not even sure how someone can contest that the events spoken in those last verses are distant future: they refer to others sitting on Christ’s throne, His coming, His clothing of the righteous in white, His giving of a secret name—all things that the book, incidentally, records in the later chapters . But, unless all these things happened in secret, they’re just things that haven’t historically happened.

Christ, the Speaker (and not John the amanuensis) would have known that and these letters to these seven churches would have stood as a testimony against the broad church across history.

Fifth: The letters contextually stand in a stream of a apocalyptic writing with a lot of intense pictures: often very hard to understand. This is, after all, the Lord in Glory, the Son of God with power, speaking and not John and with all four purposes being explicit who knows if it has some sort of other level that was recorded with intentionality that we don’t know about.

By the time the Revelation of Christ was recorded, the other books of the New Testament were already written—including all those words that the authors recorded of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The Lord would surely know this (so would John) and that would, I think, encourage people to read the words of Christ and find where things might correlate.

So the text might be doing something else but whatever it is doing, the reader is likely encouraged to see how the Lord speaks here correlates with how he speaks elsewhere. Indeed, this point might even be able to be expanded by noting the imagery that Christ shows John (lights, trees, squares, temples, angels, etc).

Concluding thoughts: This all then shows that the letters to the churches have at least four and maybe even five purposes: (1) to address the situations  in the specifically mentioned local bodies, (2) to serve as a warning and encouragement for the other churches that  were addressed (3)to travel and serve as a warning to all the churches abroad (4) to function as a warning and encouragement to the church as a whole throughout time (5) to be read in conjunction with the other messages of the Lord and discover correlations.

And  although I think those five purposes are operative I don’t think it justifies some of the wilder things done with the text: like counting numbers to find a code, or digging up root words and their meanings to discover a label of the activity or the reason the local body was picked (I think the order of the local bodies was in a semi-circle starting from the nearest city to Patmos, up and around to the furthest inland city—but who really can say: the Lord was walking in the midst of the Churches so he was nearby all of them).

So, as to the churches in this section being a preview of Church history, or a recapitulation of all history since Eden, or something else—I don’t know. But I do think that flattening the purpose of the text here to one time locale (be it historic or futuristic) or one audience (be it Ephesus or Jerusalem or New York) is problematic.

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James was found riding his bike every other Saturday.

Allow me a moment to apply a term to this sentence that isn’t normally used: story*.  You understand that the sentence is attributing an action (riding his bike) to a specific person (James) within a certain time frame (every other Saturday)—but this doesn’t have to be a beginning or an ending.

It remains as a self-contained Happening in James’ world. It’s believable to enter into that world. There’s no logical contradictions encountered. It just exists.

From here, you can walk away from this story and remain happy. The story stands on its own.

When reading Scripture we encounter Stories—several in fact. Folk who deny inerrancy have no problem with Story but they have a problem with the placement of Story.

This is a mistake, they say, notice the variance of the story being used here verses there.

Maybe they’re speaking about the chronology of a Gospel account, or maybe they’re talking about the differences of an account recorded in Kings vs. the Chronicles or maybe they’re even highlighting the differences in Paul’s conversion story. Whatever the case may be, they refuse to read the story with a charitable ear to the author; rather they see that the authors are, somehow, mistaken. It doesn’t matter, they say, at least the Author’s point was clear.

What winds up happening is that the Point is treated like a gem, to be lifted up out of the muddied context from whence it came. It’s polished, repositioned, and it is put on display: the messy text, on the other hand, can remain safely ignored.

And yet, this completely ignores the way a story (like words) can be used in different contexts to highlight different points. A story placed next to another might reflect The Actual Point.

For example, let’s go back to James:

Janet, James’ shrew of a wife, spent years complaining that they were growing apart. She screeched. She yelled. She cajoled. Every fortnight of this, he couldn’t help it—he had to get out. James was found riding his bike every other Saturday.

Well, the original story is the same but the context is near another story: the story of James’ Wife. Now that the two stories are next to each other, the Point is not merely that James was found riding his bike but the man was using it to escape!

Now, are there any mistakes? The details of both stories seem pretty important.

“Well,” says the Objector “there are no problems here since it expands on the story of James’ riding.

Well, let’s up the ante:

James’ co-worker Gina was a beautiful woman: friendly, flirtatious and fine. Every other week, she enjoyed swimming, in the buff, at a private lake in the State park. James noted, if he scheduled his day just right, he could catch a late afternoon vision of exquisitely exposed beauty. James was found riding his bike every other Saturday.

Story One (the original) still remains the same but now the story three in the same context gives a naughty edge to James’ bike riding.

But how does it affect Story Two? Has that story now been relegated to wrong? Do we now have an errant account of the life of James with the Point being whatever we can separate from the conflicting accounts?

You see, Story Two and Story Three can both remain as unchanged as Story One. Put next to each other they gives us a picture of James’ Life; told separately, they highlight certain aspects of that life without being contradictory or errant. The only sure thing you see in telling the story is that the Author has a different reason for sharing the information that he does and that using the same story near other contexts may reveal some of the author’s mind.

So what the reader should be doing is entering into the story and notice the details within the story as it stands. And then, the reader should be noting the near context of the story: why was it placed here instead of there?  Why is the author organizing his material in this way? What does it say about the Author’s Point?

The Story is important; it’s placement near other Stories is equally important. The Point, then, doesn’t function like a gem—hidden in the grime, just waiting for some person to remove the entire messy Story away from it. Rather each story should function as part of the whole presented by the author—the dimmed lights, the soft jazz, the scented candles, the roses littering the floor—that when put together tell you what’s really going on.

Words are, therefore, special though they mean nothing without context. But Stories define context, and when placed near the vicinity of other Stories, the reader should be careful (and respectful) enough to allow the Author’s positioning of those stories to reveal his flow of thought.

*I borrowed and modified the example from one of my mentors but I don’t want to use his name online. Some of the terms I borrowed from another mentor: J.R.R. Tolkien.

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Revelation has two spheres and two modes: a broad sphere and a narrow sphere; a general mode and a special mode.

The two spheres are obvious in our everyday experience. My wife can broadly reveal her skills by singing while working or by narrowly telling people directly that she can sing. God operates the same way where he just acts (and lets the lesson speak from that) or when he directly reveals something about Himself.  So the first is a broad sphere of revelation and the latter is a narrow sphere.

The two modes are just a fancy way of speaking about the audience that receives the spheres of revelation and for what purpose. In the General mode, revelation is generally made available to anyone with the capacity to receive it (say via having the ability to see or being in that space time) and the other mode of revelation is specially set aside for certain people or groups for some specific reason and are exceedingly unique. Whereas general revelation leaves a lot to read in to, special revelation has a goal and a certain uniqueness.

Now these terms aren’t found in Scripture—they’re descriptive; Scripture is always to be our definer of these ideas.

General Revelation:

Creation and Conscience. Scripture records that all humans are without excuse because they have the witness of Creation (Rom 1:20), the Heavens (Ps. 19:1, 2), the continued existence of all things (Heb. 1:3) and their own conscience bearing witness (Rom 2:14-15). These things are things available to mostly everybody. What is being revealed might be a very broad (there is an Intelligent Designer) but Scripture decides to tell us what those things are specifically saying about God—and thus, because of Scripture, we see the very narrow statements God is making: his invisible attributes are clearly seen (Rom 1:20), his glory is manifest (Ps 19:1,2), how he holds all things together (Heb 1:3), how the conscience reveals the Law of God on the hearts of people (Rom 2:14-15).

Other? There might also be other areas beside Creation and Conscience that affords general revelation. Paul sometimes cites philosophers or poets (Act 17:28; 1 Cor 15:33; Titus 1:12) and once makes a strong logical possibility argument not necessarily on Creation but on (1) farming practices,  (2) biological nature of creatures and (3) the nature of celestial objects (1 Corinthians 15:37-31). Sometimes there is an argument via the fact that there are judiciary and governmental powers even if those powers are placed in a certain hierarchy (Romans 13). These things are generally available to everyone and they teach something so they might be available as categories of general revelation. Even a church council might be considered general and broad revelation but the message is only clear and authoritative if explained by God.

Special Revelation:

Christ. When Jesus Christ was seen and handled among men generally (John 1:14; Is 53:2) and yet he was the Special Revelation of God (John 1:18). Those who were his sheep heard his voice, those that weren’t didn’t; they could, surely, but at that point they didn’t (John 10). By his actions, he broadly revealed the mind of God (John 1:14-17) but by his words he revealed God (John 1:18; 5:19-24) and his self-disclosure wasn’t to be repeated.

Prophets. When a prophet receives a prophecy, it doesn’t bubble up within Him but comes directly from God and the Prophet is carried along by God (2 Peter 1:20-21). A prophet speaking a word outside of God’s words (by adding to them, creating them, or attributing them to another) not only misrepresents God (cf. Numbers 20:8-12) but must be killed (Deuteronomy 13:1–5). When a Prophet speaks the word of God, God works signs to reveal that the Prophet is speaking on His behalf but even so, if he performs signs and speaks another message he is a liar. 1 Kings 13 is important here because the event is kind of trivial. A Man of God is told by God to go home without eating and drinking and another man, an old retired prophet, lies and says he received a word of God to have the man of God stay at his place and have a meal. The man of God, knowing how close he is to remain to the Word of God winds up getting killed. The old man realizes the error of his ways and expects a near death and burial in that same place.

Individuals. Sometimes God speaks to specific individuals and reveals something to them that may important to them in their situation. Sometimes it might be a dream telling them where they should preach the Gospel (Acts 16:9), at other times it might be a vision (Acts 2:16-21), it could be a specific response to prayer (2 Cor 12:9), and at other times it might even be a voice from heaven (John 12:29). These messages might not be for everyone, they’re directed to specific individuals, and hold no authority over the rest of the Church unless God says so—and in that case it would be a prophesy instead of a private revelation.

Scripture. Scripture is not generally accepted by everyone nor is it expected to be, but it will be acknowledged by those who trust in God (Rom 8:7; 1 Cor 1:1-3). And although we see places where God speaks telling people to record (Narrow Revelation: Rev 1:11; Jer 30:2) we also note that in most places, God does not do so. So how is it the Special revelation of God? Well, because it falls mostly into this broad sphere of revelation but limited to specific groups. All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God (2 Tim 3:16) for certain tasks; the things that really occurred to the Israelites was recorded for them was so that they could live (Deut 32:47); the things that were previously recorded really did happen but were recorded for our learning (1 Cor 10:11; Romans 15:4). So we see that although all these other general revelations and special revelations occurred, it is the Scriptures that hold an authoritative place in revealing what God wants revealed.

In the next post we’ll discuss if this revelation of God is reliable by looking at the Old Testament Canon of Scripture and it’s intent.

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1. Considering Flashes of Glory
2. Flash of Glory in Cana
3. Glory Unveiled on the Cross
4. Glory Unstopped

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