Not "Letters to the Seven Churches"

It's customary to refer to Revelation chapters 2 and 3 as the "Letters to the Seven Churches".

As I've studied, and we've preached, our way through these chapters, I'm not convinced that's the best heading to give them.

In fact, the whole of Revelation is a single letter. It's an epistle, like Philippians is. We get that from verse 4 that begins:

“John, to the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace …”

The whole of Revelation is a letter. It was written to seven churches in Asia Minor.

What, then, are chapters 2 and 3? They are messages addressed to each church in turn, each of which forms part of the epistle that was sent to all 7.

That may sound like splitting hairs, but it's not. There weren't seven different editions of Revelation, where each church had their own version of chapters 2 and 3. (Even if that was the case, the "letter to the church in Ephesus" would not be 2:1-7, but the whole of Revelation excepting 2:8-3:22). Each church received the whole of Revelation as an epistle from the apostle John, and they all read the whole of chapters 2 and 3.

Which means that every church was meant to learn from what was written to every other church. If you had time, you could draw up a grid. What was the church in Thyatira supposed to hear as they read the message to the church in Philadelphia? (And so you could go on - you'd have 49 boxes to complete).

Then, in our own day, none of our churches will be exactly like any of those 7. We might have thought that meant we can only learn from some of them. However, once we've seen that all 7 churches read all 7 messages, that's no longer the case. We know that the risen Jesus intended to speak to every church through the personalised messages that were addressed to each one in turn. That means that he intends to speak to your church, and to my church, through each of the 7 messages that make up Revelation 2-3.

In the book of Revelation, the number 7 is frequently symbolic. It stands for totality. Here is another clue as to how Revelation chapters 2 and 3 function. The 7 churches together represent every church at every point in time and space - including yours and mine. Between them, they experienced the whole gamut of pressures, temptations and joys faced by the church in every period. Which is why, as we read all 7, we will collectively hear the message that Jesus has for our own churches, because our churches are located somewhere in the totality of those 7.