The letters to the seven churches

The book of Revelation includes seven letters to seven specific churches. What is the purpose of these letters, how are they arranged, and what is the overall message?

You may want to read before

• Historical background of the book
• What type of book is this
• The vision
• The angels of the churches

The vision behind the letters

Before writing the letters, John records a vision of how God envisions the Church. Its message is that the Church, pictured as stars and lampstands, is meant to be light — lampstands giving light within the Church, stars giving light to the world — but only through dependence on Jesus, never apart from him. This is exactly what the seven churches are being judged on.

At the beginning of this chapter, we already saw what Jesus did. Now we turn to the situation the churches are actually in, and to what God is doing to move them toward the calling that vision describes.

Why these seven, in this order

Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea: this is not a random list. It is the order of an actual Roman road — the route a courier carrying the letter (and the whole book of Revelation) would travel, starting at Ephesus, the province’s major port and hub, moving north along the coast to Smyrna and on to Pergamon, then turning southeast through the Hermus and Cogamus valleys through Thyatira, Sardis, and Philadelphia, before finishing at Laodicea in the southeastern interior. Whatever thematic patterns the arrangement also displays, the sequence itself follows a real, roughly circular postal route through the province of Asia.

The structure of the letters

In each letter, Jesus follows a broadly similar pattern: he addresses the church in a specific way — often drawing the description of himself from the vision in chapter 1 — commends what is praiseworthy, and gives a promise to “the one who conquers.” Not every letter has every part, though: Smyrna and Philadelphia receive no complaint at all, and Laodicea receives no commendation whatsoever.

Laid over this basic pattern, the seven letters also display a thematic symmetry some interpreters have noted:

• The first and the last are the churches in the worst shape. Ephesus, the first, is warned that its lampstand will be removed if it doesn’t change — in terms of the vision above, this church has lost its purpose and has no reason left to exist. Laodicea, the last, is the only church that receives no praise whatsoever.
• The second and second-to-last (Smyrna and Philadelphia) are the only two that receive no reproof at all, only praise.
• The third and fifth (Pergamon and Sardis) each have some good points and some bad, while the fourth, Thyatira, stands at the center as a warning example to the other churches of just how much damage evil leadership can do.

Comparing the paired churches brings out some striking points:

• Ephesus and Laodicea. Ephesus does everything right but has lost its first love. Laodicea, by contrast, does nothing right and lives in a fog of self-deception. The lesson cuts both ways: without love, you can get everything else right and still be no better off than Laodicea — a church without love has lost its purpose.
• Smyrna and Philadelphia. Both face outside opposition, and in both cases the pressure comes from Jewish opposition. Smyrna faces both poverty and the threat of imprisonment (2:9-10); Philadelphia has “little strength” — limited numbers or standing in the city (3:8). Philadelphia is given the promise that these opponents will eventually be made to acknowledge God’s love for the church; Smyrna is given no such promise. Yet in both cases, the churches are simply told to keep the faith and continue their work. Jesus promises to see them through, not that everything they attempt will succeed.
• Pergamon and Sardis. It might seem unfair to compare Pergamon’s sexual immorality with Sardis’s spiritual lifelessness, but the underlying problem may be the same in both: leadership that allows the wrong influences in, whether through unchecked false teaching or an unchecked absence of the Spirit’s work. Church leadership needs to walk a careful line — giving the Holy Spirit room to work, while not leaving the door open to just anyone’s teaching.
• Thyatira. Standing alone at the center, Thyatira’s letter is fundamentally about evil leadership. Jesus will judge both the leaders and their followers for their sin, and the other churches are meant to take note — a pointed reminder of just how much damage bad leadership does to a church’s witness.