This episode we look at the letter to the angel in the church of Smyrna.

Smyrna was north of Ephesus,

and still exists in the modern city of Izmir. 

And contrary to what is described in this letter to the church,

Smyrna was a prosperous city at the time of the John's vision,

and it was one of the main rivals for "First city of Asia" with Ephesus.

This letter highlights a very important thing

when we talk about the Kingdom of God.

Often a Kingdom perspective

is very different than an earthly one.

Ephesus was the pre-eminant church at the time of John's vision.

The church was founded by and home to St. Paul for five years.

It was the second largest city in the empire after Rome.

It was the home of John.

And by the time of this book,

The church in Ephesus was changing.

Before we can jump into the letters to the seven churches,

we need to talk about about the symbolic meaning behind the word Church.

As we will see again and again in Revelation,

this is all about Jesus.

And John makes it clear that the revelation of Jesus is related to a mystery.

John is going to use the word mystery a lot.

And as we have seen already, the first place he uses it is in reference

to the seven stars, the seven lampstands, and the seven churches.

There is something hidden here,

that John wants to reveal.

And again, going back to the title of the book, what he wants to reveal is Jesus Christ.

The word "church" does not appear anywhere in the new testament.

The word used in the new testament is the word "ekklesia."

Ekklesia is a word that references a specific place and time.