Tuesday Night Rev Bible Study
December 11th – Third Week – Recap / Chapter 2 and 3
Discuss
Chapter 4
Blog Format:
1.
Housecleaning Notes - things pertaining to Tuesday night at Leah
and Jon’s
2.
Recap of the previous week discussion
3.
Chapter notes and background
4.
Questions and homework for the next meeting night
We will not be signing up to bring snacks this time around (but if someone wants to bring snacks, no one will stop them). Coffee will be available. We will go from 6:30PM to 7:45PM. At 7:45PM we will finish so people with kiddos can get them home. If someone has further questions, we can discuss for a few minutes afterward, but it will be informal. We will begin with prayer requests and then move on to the study.
Recap of Questions Chapter 2 and 3:
1. Most individuals want to know what God thinks of
them…how do you think the actual churches responded to God’s word for their
respective church?
We already know what is going on in our lives, and sometimes we don’t
want to know what God thinks of us. Because He knows all things, we
have a feeling it might not be positive. While we don’t know how each church
responded to their respective letter, it must have at least served notice that God
was and is aware of the needs and issues each church was facing. The same is true
today. Even if we feel like God is distant, He is aware of everything that goes
on in the churches today, both good and bad.
2. What do you think it means to forget your first love?
The church of Ephesus, the first of the seven letters,
paints the picture of a church that is always doing, and in some ways that
doesn’t seem to be so bad. The problem is that in their mode of doing, they
neglected to remember why they were serving, namely their love for Christ.
Their actions were out of obligation, not love - almost like checking off a
list to get to the next item. Our lives are similar. Anyone married can surely
relate to ‘forgetting your first love’. You start out in the honeymoon phase
and have an earnest desire to please and get your spouse excited about the
relationship they are in with you…yet as time marches on we tend to not be as loving
as we once were. We might even take for granted the relationship we have been
blessed to be in. How often is God in mind when it comes to your relationship
with Him? Do bills, problems, other issues crowd Him out? Are you just as
excited to be a follower of Christ as you were at the beginning?
3. What letter to the church in your opinion reminds you
most of the church today? Which letter speaks to you, and what in our culture
complicates your relationship with Christ the most? The
last letter, addressed to the church
of Laodicea, seems to be
the one we think mirrors the church of today. In the letter, Jesus is literally
on the outside knocking to come in so that He can have fellowship with that
church. Instead, that church was able to get along without Him. They had the
ability to fix themselves and their problems with medicines and wealth.
Jesus' counsel is that they are really naked and blind - that they do need
Him, more then they truly realize. The scary thing about the time in which we
live is that our technology and wealth can allow us to carry on without Jesus. We pray, go to church, but when it comes down to it how much
dependence do we really have on Christ to be our all in all? The Laodiceans
were lukewarm by Christ’s estimation, they were nether hot or cold. The
question for us becomes: are we hot or cold, or are we lukewarm as well? Television,
influences at work, and just the culture in which we all live - all can play a
role in our feeling distant from God. The comforting thing about the last
letter is that Jesus has not given up, rather he is literally knocking on the
door to our hearts to come in and make things whole.
4. What is a dispensationalist?
Some theologians believe that the letters can be
broken down to reflect church history, that the seven letters provide a
panoramic view of the church age. According to this view:
- The church at Ephesus describes the church during the apostolic period until about 0 A.D. - 100 A.D.
- Smyrna represents the church from 100 – 313 A.D. as it suffered under a succession of Roman emperors.
- Pergamos characterizes the carnal and false-doctrine-riddled church from Constantine’s Edict of Toleration (313 A.D.) until the rise of the Papacy (about 500 A.D.).
- Thyatira is seen as the Papal church until the Reformation (500 – 1500 A.D.).
- Sardis is the church during the Reformation (1500 – 1700 A.D.).
- Philadelphia depicts the missionary-minded church from 1700 A.D. – present.
- And Laodicea describes the lukewarm, liberal and backslidden church of modern times. Present - ?
While the panaoramic view cannot be proven 100%, it interesting to re-read each letter and match it up with the time periods associated with each letter (see above). It is remarkable that the seven letters still offer insight for us today, and digging deeper does seem to find parallels with church history through the ages, something only the Holy Spirit could have engineered. For a more thorough study of Dispensationalism:
http://answers.org/theology/dispensationalism.html .
5. Is there a common theme or pattern to the letters? Each letter concludes with the same statement: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches..." (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). The word here is "churches," in the plural. This implies that the words written to each congregation are meant to apply to all seven churches. This means that the seven individual church messages were meant for all the congregations in Asia of John’s day – and, by extension, for the entire church of the time. We could also infer that the spiritual condition of these seven congregations is characteristic of every group of Christians during the last 1900 years. Certainly, God’s people in all ages should be concerned about the spiritual problems described in each of the letters and take assurance in the promise that those who overcome will inherit all things with their Savior, Jesus Christ.
Questions / Next Reading Assign: Revelation Chap. 4
1) In Revelation 3:8 ; 3:20; and 4:1 a
door is described. What is the difference between the door in chapter 4, and
the two doors in chapter 3? Which door, if any, is literal?
2) “After these things…” begins chapter
4. What things take place before John’s vision in the opening of chapter 4?
3) When John gets to Heaven through the
open door, what does he describe as of first importance?
4) Does John’s description of God’s
throne make you think any differently about what it will be like when you meet
Him face to face for the first time?
5) Who are the twenty-four elders?
6) In chapter 1 John describes Jesus. What
is different about John’s description from chapter 1 to his description of God
in chapter 4?
7) Who are the four living creatures in
chapter 4, and what does their song confirm about God?
