Smyrna: Facing Suffering
Read: Revelation 2:9-10 You will have tribulation. (v. 10) “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that,” quipped C. S. Lewis. “If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity” (God in the Dock, p. 48). Jesus […]
The Living One
Read: Revelation 2:8; Mark 16:1-8 The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life. (Rev. 2:8) We have already heard God call himself the Alpha and Omega, the first and last (Rev. 1:8). Now Jesus does the same. His second letter, addressed to the church of Smyrna, is introduced as, […]
The Tree of Life
Read: Revelation 2:7; 22:1-5 To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (2:7) The original Tree of Life was in the Garden of Eden, along with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. After Adam and Eve ate the […]
Ephesus: Lost Love
Read: Revelation 2:2-6; Luke 7:36-50 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (Rev. 2:4) In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, beset by the uncertainties swirling around his life and family, asks his wife, “Do you love me?” Golde replies, “Do I what? Look what I’ve been […]
Among the Lampstands
Read: Revelation 2:1; Matthew 18:18-20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. (Matt. 18:20) Each of Jesus’ seven letters is addressed to the “angel” of the church. The word angelos could also be translated “messenger,” so it’s likely that the addressee is the pastor of each of […]
The Keys of Death and Hades
Read: Revelation 1:17b-20 I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. (v. 18) The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates the moment when Christ triumphed over the powers of hell as the anastasis, which literally means “resurrection.” The idea is that sometime during the period between his death […]
What Jesus Looks Like Now
Read: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Revelation 1:12-17a When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. (Rev. 1:17a) What’s your mental picture of Jesus? Some might think of a painting that once hung in many a church lounge, a portrait of an olive-skinned Jesus with brown hair and beard and a rather dreamy […]
In the Spirit on the Lord’s Day
Read: Revelation 1:10-11; John 20:1-10, 19-20 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day. (Rev. 1:10) I have a pastor friend who likes to explain Scripture phrases by running them through the “Bible decoder ring.” If you run our key verse through that, it comes out “I was worshiping one Sunday.” John was doing […]
A Wonderful Way to Worship God
This book is a series of weekly meditations, designed to last for a whole year. Instead of reading a new passage and meditation each day, you will read the passage selected and the meditation to start a week of sustained reflections. For the remainder of the week, read the passage again each day. After reading, […]