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In The Book Of Revelation, John Writes An Apocalyptic Letter

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In the book of Revelation, John writes an apocalyptic letter each to the seven churches in the ancient Roman providence of Asia (The Bible Project). Before writing the letters, John of Patmos, or another John, is persecuted for preaching the Gospel; as punishment, he is exiled on an island called Patmos where he meets Jesus in a vision, seeing the risen Savior in His full glory. This becomes the start of Revelation where Jesus would tell John about the present events likely to happen with the future outcomes of history. This happened with prophets in the Old Testament, such as Isaiah and Ezekiel. The parallelism between the Old Testament prophets and the author of Revelation is that each prophet received a vision from God. When God calls …show more content…

Moreover, Jesus praises the seven churches for what they do (except Laodicea), but reveals their true sin or struggle He has against them. In order for them to overcome their sin or struggle, Jesus offers a solution to their problems, giving them a chance to change before Judgment Day. The final statements made are when Jesus says, “The one who has ears must pay attention to what the Spirit say (Rev. 3:22 NIV), followed by an eschatological promise of what is to come if they keep and obey His words (Keener 105). The structure of the letters to the seven churches has similar characteristics; however, the messages to the seven churches differ from each other.
In Revelation 3:14-22, Jesus addresses His problem with Laodicea with no mention of their good deeds like the other six churches. In verses 15-16, He describes the angel of Laodicea as lukewarm, which means that it was neither hot nor cold. Lukewarm means chliaros, meaning tepid (Barclay 98). In the New Beacon Bible Commentary, it describes Laodicea, modern Eskihisar, as a prospering city, which suffered two earthquakes and refused financial assistance from Rome. What connects Laodicea to water is that the city had “hard, but potable water” from a spring “six miles to the south”, which consequently cause the water to become lukewarm. Jesus uses this imagery to reflect on His judgment against the angel of Laodicea. Moreover, He had a problem with its indifferent spiritual state, becoming

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