Revelation 2:8-11
The second of the letters in the Book of the Revelation. To the Church at Smyrna. Smyrna was quite a city: cultured, prosperous, religious, architecturally stunning. Smyrna was the place you wanted to live in but if you were Christian it wasn’t quite so good. The Jews within this very cosmopolitan city stirred up hatred of the Christian community and so they were persecuted. The expression, ‘in ten days’ was not a literal signpost of time, but rather an expression equivalent to, “in the near future”. John was telling them that they, citizens of the 1st city of Asia, even greater than Ephesus, were in trouble. They were to remember however that God is the first and the last.
These few verses really merit an entire evening’s bible study – there is so much in them.
The second of the letters in the Book of the Revelation. To the Church at Smyrna. Smyrna was quite a city: cultured, prosperous, religious, architecturally stunning. Smyrna was the place you wanted to live in but if you were Christian it wasn’t quite so good. The Jews within this very cosmopolitan city stirred up hatred of the Christian community and so they were persecuted. The expression, ‘in ten days’ was not a literal signpost of time, but rather an expression equivalent to, “in the near future”. John was telling them that they, citizens of the 1st city of Asia, even greater than Ephesus, were in trouble. They were to remember however that God is the first and the last.
These few verses really merit an entire evening’s bible study – there is so much in them.