The Seven Churches

I tried to find a decent map of the seven churches but couldn't, and most of your Bibles should have a map that shows them on the western part of modern-day Turkey. There are two basic points I will make today.

The first is an idea that we in the Lutheran church (and indeed, many other churches as well) don't put much stock in, but it does have some illustrative purpose. This idea is more prominent in premillenial thinking, which I will explain in greater depth on December 31st, and views the seven churches as markers of seven distinct eras in the Church:

Most of these are pretty easy to understand, so I'll explain them anyway. Obviously, the Apostolic Church had the physical presence of the apostles to lead and direct it, and since John was the last living apostle, the Apostolic Church era ended with his death. A strong argument could be made that the Persecuted Church should have begun in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple, but that's quibbling. In 590, Pope Gregory I began his papal service and remade the church into the the medieval church, and most smart Lutherans can place the reason for the timing of the REFORMed Church. The last two are somewhat arbitrary, with the Missionary Church roughly coinciding with the Industrial Revolution and the Apostate Church tied to the idea that Church of today has lost its way. As you read the individual letters and see the commendations and shortcomings of each of the churches, keep these things in mind to help differentiate the messages to the churches.

Of course, the most important lesson of these lessons is in the letter to Laodicea, where it states in Revelation 3:15:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!

That continues to be the admonition for the Church today--we're neither cold nor hot. Even if we've deserted the Lord, we don't have the courage to tell ourselves that, and God is telling us clearly to MAKE OUR CHOICE. Sitting on the fence and being wishy-washy with regard to the Lord is not an option.

My last point is one that any of you who have heard me speak on the Seven Churches and stayed awake while I did have heard before. I first heard it from Pastor Vokt in May 2004, when we were doing a morning of prayer at the church. Pastor Vokt said that while those seven churches had been amongst the best and brightest in the world at the time of John's writing, they all disappeared from Christianity within 500 years. While it's entirely possible that the fall of Rome and rise of Islam helped complete the downfall of these churches, Pastor Vokt suggested that apathy and a lack of focus could have been just as responsible. It follows directly from the admonition to be either hot or cold, since the biggest enemy of the church is thinking that things will go along just as they had been, and preferably with no action on our parts. A detached church with a distaste and disinterest for doctrine is often stuck in the doldrums and in a downward spiral of dullness (notice all those "d" words--I just looked up synonyms for "apathy"). When going to the church becomes a checkmark that we cross off our list, the first step toward an ex-church has been made. Don't get me wrong, churches close each and every day, for perfectly good reasons--missions changes, focuses changes, whatever. Nothing lasts forever, nor should we expect it to, but we should never allow apathy to be the reason that we lose a church.

Scott