Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012
Vern Peterman · Jun 24, 2012
Bible Bkgds/Church History, No. 26
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926319147182

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

The front of your handout has this fairly large scale map. I think it's helpful because seeing where everything is here kind of gives you a sense of where things are and why even going through the churches in the sequence that they're located. The story goes like this, and I don't say story in a fictitional sense, but the story goes like this.

The Apostle John, was the last living apostle, so far as we know. The Emperor Domitian had sentenced him to death by boiling in oil, and this is extra-biblical accounts, so it doesn't have the sureness of scripture, but that's the record we have. The attempt to boil him in oil was apparently unsuccessful, And so, you know, what are we going to do? So they exiled him to the Isle of Patmos, which was kind of a prison island where, you know, you're there, you're not getting off. So they exiled him to Patmos.

Here, as a very aged man, And so Patmos is here. You have it there on your map. There's the island. It's off the coast from Ephesus and Miletus, which is one of the major towns mentioned in Acts 20, to the south. So he's exiled there. It's from there he writes to these seven churches. And that's what we'll be taking a look at today. The churches go in a sequence like this.

First Ephesus. which seems to be the city where he stayed in his last days, aside from his trip to Patmos. And then northward through Smyrna and Pergamum, and then from Pergamum down through Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Laodicea being the last one of the seven churches. So these are the seven cities and the seven churches at each of those cities. that are addressed.

And what we'll do is go through some of the background in this. We have a more thorough study of the book of Revelation in total and actually go through the seven churches first in an introductory fashion and then one at a time in the Revelation series. So feel free, it's all on the website. You can access it there. So at any rate, we will just be looking at background today.

The messages to the seven churches, that's a 2009 elective that the Revelation series was in. The seven churches in Revelation, which are addressed in chapters 1 through 3, and the messages specifically are chapters 2 and 3, were in cities that had international exposure along the coast. They're especially Ephesus and Smyrna. You have ports.

There are Roman roads between all of them. And as we've discussed, Romans built lots of roads, enough roads by the end of their time of building to go two times around the earth. Isn't that amazing? All by hand. And they didn't go chintzy. Some of the roads are still in use. Some of the roads, like the one through Philippi, is in use but paved.

Now, there is even a connection and it came first into Antioch, which is another New Testament in the Book of Acts city. It came into Antioch as the Silk Road. This is trade through China and India. It came into there. The next connection came through Ephesus where it then went as a port city into the rest of the Roman Empire.

There was a strong Greek cultural background because of the invasion of Alexander the Great a few centuries earlier. There was a significant Jewish influence from the migration of Jews there about 220 BC. Remember we had spoken about that earlier. One of the generals of Alexander the Great had established a kingdom that went all the way from this area in what is now Turkey, all the way to Babylon.

And he encouraged a number of Jews to move into this area around Ephesus. And he did so by saying, any Jew who moves there gets 10 years tax-free. And a lot of them said, where do I sign, right? And so they made the migration there, got a 10-year exemption on taxes. And so a great number of Jews, though still a minority, populated this area.

It is an interesting kind of cultural background there. Each city had its own history and local culture as well. So the messages to each of the churches vary. Here's something else that is not commonly brought out, and that is, you know how we think of the Greeks as having athletic competitions? There was also a Greek cultural background to have competitions between cities. And as a matter of fact, the athletic events were often, you know, here's this guy from this city and he's representing that city. But there were other economic and various other realms in which they had competition between cities.

Here's Revelation 2, 1 through 7. I won't read through it all, but as you have it, I've included it on yours, and particularly I want to point out the things we've underlined there. The seven golden lampstands, and I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. And you found them to be false, and you have perseverance and have endured for my name's sake and have not grown weary. There is additionally a reference there farther down in verse 5 to a lampstand, and finally the tree of life in the last part, one of the addresses to those who overcome. I've underscored those because those are all relevant to the history of the city and to the history of the church that was there in Ephesus. Let's take a look at it.

Here's Ephesus, the first of the seven cities. It's the first geographically, if we kind of look at this as a clockwise movement, and it's the first one there addressed in the beginning of chapter two. Here is the theater and the local road leading to the harbor. This is the theater where there was essentially a near riot where the silversmith got everybody from the Agora and running over into this theater and shouting, great is Artemis of the Ephesians for two hours. That's the theater right there.

If you look down, here's the road from the harbor and you see what is Now that brown area, light brown area, that's where the harbor filled in with silt and that was basically the end of Ephesus as an important port city. It's hard to have a port if you can't get in there, right? So it filled in with silt. They just couldn't keep up with it and so they essentially lost their port city status and from there it was a decline. Ephesus had every advantage of apostolic background. As a matter of fact, as I look through the New Testament, they are unique in having continuous apostolic involvement over years and decades.

Acts 20 is Paul's last address to the elders from Ephesus. He met them in Miletus. But it is the longest address to Christians in the book of Acts that's recorded there. Paul spent three years in Ephesus, that's what he says in Acts 20, and sent Timothy to correct the false teachers when he was in prison in Rome. According to the records outside the Bible, John spent his last years there, perhaps more than 20 years in Ephesus.

Some traditions have it even longer. So at any rate, real interesting. So here's a place established by an apostle where Timothy was sent as an apostolic delegate. So actually Timothy was not a pastor in the strictest sense. He was an apostolic delegate. He was operating under Paul's appointment and authority while Paul was still alive and under Paul's direction. So he's an apostolic delegate. So you have Paul and Timothy as an apostolic delegate and then John.

So they had tremendous advantage in terms of having long-standing apostolic involvement. I'm not aware of any other city that has quite the same kind of longevity of apostolic involvement. It was famous for its lamp-lit streets and so the interesting dimension of the lamps and the lamp stands there. the message to the churches. Notice I don't call it letters. Sometimes you'll hear them called letters to the churches. They're not written in a standard letter format. So that's why I call them messages.

So anyway, Ephesus' principal deity was Artemis, represented in some carvings and sculptures as a tree of life. As a matter of fact, in the middle of the marketplace there in Ephesus, They had a fake Tree of Life that was supposed to be an embodiment of Artemis. And so the mention at the last part of the message there to Ephesus is about the Tree of Life.

Isn't that interesting? So a very deliberate connection. One of the things that Jesus makes note of in that message is that this church perseveres and they stand on solid doctrine and they stand on solid morals and ethics and all that. And that fits with their long-standing apostolic involvement, doesn't it? Because they've already got these apostles teaching you. Problem, you've lost your first love. So you guys have all the doctrine right and you got all the morals right and you're discerning and all that, you lost your first love. Here is in verses 8 through 11 the message to the church at Smyrna. And what I've done is I've put each church on a separate page and got all the slides together so you can track them a little more easily.

The key things to point out here is talking about the Jews that are there, Jews that are not, but are a synagogue of Satan, which is really something to call the Jews something so intense. A synagogue of Satan. And then finally, it says, be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. This is one of the places where the crowns are promised. There are five crowns promised in scripture, and this is one of them.

So here is Smyrna, you have that marked also on your page there that's covering Smyrna. Here is Smyrna's Agora, that is their marketplace. To sell something in the agora is agorazzo, right? So it goes together. Smyrna, like Ephesus, was a port city, an important one.

Background there is that Smyrna had a Jewish community that was organized as a synagogue. A synagogue required at least ten Jewish men, and they apparently had far more than that. substantial Jewish population from the move encouraged by the kingdom that followed Alexander the Great. The Jewish people appear to have been wealthy and influential from the written historical records that we have, even influential in the Gentile culture. So it was even notable among the Gentiles that these Jews were rich and influential rather than just simply being kind of laying low and keeping quiet, they were actually quite involved. About the time of the writing of the book of Revelation, and in the decades thereafter, the Jewish community showed particular hostility to Christians.

And so then that fits what we see there in the message to the churches, right? The message to Smyrna. Records from Smyrna indicate that the Jews made significant contributions to Smyrna's public works and activities and seemed to be very influential.

That crown in the message to Smyrna was not a crown of royalty, a diadem crown. This isn't that kind. It's a crown as are all the crowns mentioned in the New Testament as promised to those in the church. All the crowns are rather a victor's crown for having won in a race or other athletic event. Originally, the Olympics actually only had 10 events. That was it. And married women were not allowed to watch. Interesting. Only men competed and married women were not allowed to watch. Penalty of death.

Okay, here is Revelation 2, 12-17 is the message to Pergamum, the third of the cities. Notice there you have the sharp two-edged sword mentioned there in verse 12, and again verse 16, the sword out of my mouth. By the way, the sword out of Christ's mouth is not the short sword. The Roman short sword, the gladius in Latin, or the machaira in Greek, is a ramphaia, which is a huge, long, barbarian battle sword. Five foot long. So that's the sword out of his mouth. By the way, that comes out of Isaiah.

I think it's Isaiah 49.2. And then one other, a couple other important things. Things sacrificed to idols and committing acts of immorality. We're going to talk about that because that's a biggie. The other one is the white stone, and we'll talk about what does that mean. And the next one is a new name. These things all fit Smyrna, in some cases, very specifically Smyrna.

Excuse me, Pergamon. So here's the map. Here is on the Acropolis, the top of the hill there above Pergamon, here is the area that was a library, and then off to the right is the Temple of Athena. Pergamon had the Roman Empire's second largest library consisting of, this is amazing, 200,000 volumes. Wouldn't that have been an interesting library to go through, right? 200,000 volumes. Beside the library was the sanctuary of Athena, the goddess associated with wisdom. Eventually all the volumes were transferred to the library at Alexandria, which is the largest library in the Roman Empire, but was later destroyed by the Muslims.

OK. In the year 29 BC, Pergamon was given the privilege of establishing a sacrificial site for the goddess Roma and the emperor Octavian. That was the one who was soon to be called Caesar Augustus. Caesar Augustus. So here is the sacrificial site that was built for Augustus Caesar.

A white stone had a few possible meanings, and when you read about it, there are different things that white stones were used for. There were various kinds of court judgments where the jurors would put in a black or a white stone in order to cast their vote. Other purposes as well. The one that fits the facts here in the case is that it was given to the victor in athletic contest and it was their pass, because they'd have special markings on it frequently, it was their pass to the victor's banquet. So I'll give you a white stone, you who overcome, I'll give you a white stone and that will be your pass to the victor's banquet.

The mention of the Sword of Judgment in both the beginning and the end of the message is rather ominous. That's to be taken seriously. Isaiah 49.2, it is the reference. One of the things that I think is important, people go through a revelation, they read it and they think, what in heaven's name is this? They can't figure out what it is. As a matter of fact, it's one of the books that John Calvin didn't write a commentary on. He just was baffled by this crazy book.

Important keys, some big ones. One of them is 70% of the things in Revelation come straight out of the Old Testament. We're talking over two-thirds come straight out of the Old Testament. So if you go and look up the Old Testament reference, you can get tremendous insights into what Revelation is all about. So that's part one. The other part is these background pieces of information that we're talking about. By the time you put those Old Testament references and these background pieces that we're talking about here, you have huge insights into what Revelation is about.

Anyway, just important things to look at here. Now, Ziotyra, And it has the emphasis on the syllables that way, right? Okay. Thyatira. And the things that we underline there are you tolerate the woman Jezebel. And where's that? Out of the Old or New Testament? That's the Old Testament, right? Yeah, Stan? Anything on Antipas or the Nicolaitans in the background history? Yeah, I'll talk about that in a bit. However, I'll refer you to the other study that we had for the full discussion of it. So anyway.

Who calls herself a prophetess, she teaches and leads my bondservants astray, so they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. This immorality and idols thing is a biggie and it's a common one. And then the next one talking more about her immorality, committing adultery with, etc. Even towards the end, the deep things of Satan. Isn't it interesting? The deep things of Satan. Hmm. So Satan isn't just a superficial guy. There's stuff that's deep in him. That's kind of scary.

Okay, here's Thyatira. And one other thing, Thyatira is in the middle of the seven, right? Here's Augustus Caesar, the one who reigned when Thyatira was rebuilt after the earthquake. The principal deity of Thyatira was Apollo Timneus. Here's the city seal shown here shaking hands with the emperor. So think about it. Is the emperor considered deity in the Roman Empire? Yeah. And so here's one deity shaking hands with another deity. And so they're saying, boy, we are a powerful city, right?

So that's what this is telling you. The background of Thyatira. Thyatira was the middle of the seven messages. It was the smallest of the seven cities, yet the message to the church is the longest. Isn't that interesting? The smallest church gets the longest letter. How does that work? Here is, in fact, what I have in the way of archaeological photographs. This is just a part of a residential building that was Thyatira. A lot of the archaeological items in Thyatira are not big grand structures because it was a small city, right?

It had a temple to this Apollo Timneus as the city's patron deity. the son of Zeus, head of the Greek pantheon of gods associated with the power of the sun. The city seal shows him holding an axe, indicating power and war, and shaking hands with the Roman emperor, also a deity. Thyatira had many craftsmen, merchants, and trade guilds, with guilds meeting monthly in pagan temples. This is a key thing, it was a real problem in this city, it was a common problem for Christians. And that's this.

In order to be involved in that craft, you had to be a part of the guild, right? And so in order to be a part of the guild, where do the guilds have their meetings? In the pagan temples. And so what they would do, you know, we might have a tradition where you, and sometimes even true of government organizations, although that's waning, where you start off with a you know a prayer and you close with a prayer and that kind of thing and what they would do is they would start off with some kind of a sacrifice to the idols and a prayer to the pagan god and then they would end with that and they'd finish off with an orgy and so here are the Christians going to these guild meetings and you know it's like how do I go to this meeting and not get involved in all this stuff and so you can imagine the pressure, it's economic pressure You know, if you say, I can't go to this meeting, well, then they say, well, are you part of the guild? No. Well, then you can't sell here in the marketplace. So you can imagine the economic pressure on the Christians to knuckle under and fall under the pagan practices that were associated with the guilds. The trade guild meetings were open and closed with pagan rituals. Meat offered to idols was Regular, I mean of course take the meat offer to the idol, you know, then you cook it and eat it, right?

That was the usual thing and then to have the orgies follow Now, let's talk about your Nicolaitans question. We don't know anything about this Antipas, just in brief summary. We have no other reference to it. The Nicolaitans, there are two different ideas as to what that is. One is a later author, a later author wrote that It was actually descended from Nicholas, one of the deacons in the chapter six of Acts, who split off from the apostles and started essentially his own cult.

That's one idea. The other idea, and I tend to favor this as being more likely, it means ruler of the people. And so it's basically a guy who is very heavy handed. come in and start ordering people around. And I think that's probably more likely the case.

There's nothing in the New Testament that indicates that Nicholas went off track. So anyway, that's my thought, and you can look at a more detailed discussion in the Revelation literature there. Here is Sardis, now the fourth church. Notice that we have here, wake up and strengthen the things that remain. And then again, verse three, if you do not wake up, so that's a biggie, isn't it? Not wake up, you will not know at what hour I will come to you. Okay, it'll be by surprise. So now let's take a look.

Here is Sardis, the fourth of the seven cities and churches in the book of Revelation. And here is a bathhouse that was under construction during the time the Revelation was written. It's in pretty good shape for something that's 19 centuries old. This synagogue was built right after the time of the book of Revelation being written, right next to the bathhouse. And it's, except for its roof missing, it's also in fairly good shape.

Here is the key background of Sardis and why the repeated reference to wake up, wake up, keep watch, right? Except for one steep and winding ridge that allowed access on the south side, all the other sides of the plateau were steep, almost a vertical wall. So you could only get up easily one way, and it was a winding, steep ridge, right? The lower portion of the city there is in the foreground in this picture. So the upper city of Sardis saw itself as invincible.

On more than one occasion, only one person stayed up to watch, for the enemy they knew was there, but they thought it was so impossible that they would be captured. Twice in their history that we know of, they were surprised. First time, and we'll tell only about one of them here in writing, first time was under the Persians.

The Persians came up. And one of the guys who was up in the city made a mistake. There was one place where there were handholds where you could go up and down these steep walls. And the Persians saw that and they said, aha, now we know how to get in and out of there except for that. you know, other than that ridge. And so when that one fellow went up and down that one side, that allowed the Persians to climb up during the night, and by the time they were done, have quite a few soldiers up there and take the others by surprise.

And basically caught them all asleep. The next time, and this is the one that we point out here in writing, This was a later one under the same empire that was descended from the time of Alexander the Great, one of his generals. It happened this way.

Those in the fortress would throw their garbage and animal carcasses over the edge into the deep ravine below. But one clever observer noticed that when the vultures would have their fill from the garbage in the animal carcasses, they would go up to the wall and rest. Since the birds would not rest if there was somebody there watching at the wall, the observer concluded that there was nobody watching there. There would be nobody watching there if the birds felt comfortable just landing right there on the wall. So they figured that's the place to climb up. And so they did. and caught all the soldiers except for the one sleeping. So it happened twice in their history and they knew it well.

Okay, so here's Philadelphia and what we see there is there is also a sharp reference to the Jews, a synagogue of Satan, who say they're Jews and are not. That's by the way twice, who say they're Jews and they're not. Why would he say they're Jews and they're not twice in these messages? What's wrong with these Jews that he says they're not? Well, first of all, he said they lost their first love.

Oh, you're talking about with Ephesus. Yeah, but I'm talking about these Jews here in some of these cities. Here's now the second one that you say you're a Jew, but you're not. But the same thought, I think, kind of goes on through all the churches. In other words, they're reverence, and they're Yeah, think about it.

What were some of the things that Jesus kept running into? These guys have all sorts of made up laws and then they find themselves exceptions. You know, I'll make an oath and if I make it by this I don't have to keep it. I can lie to your face as long as I swear by the right thing or wrong thing. So things like that. And that was part one.

The other thing, and it comes out in Paul's letter to the church at Rome, and he said, true Israel is believing Israel, right? It doesn't do any good to just be a descendant of Abraham. True Israel is believing Israel. These are not believing Jews, right? So that's, I think, kind of a double key there.

Next one, I will also keep you from the hour of testing, an hour which is about to come on the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth. Remember the dwell on the earth phrase that we looked at? Last week we said dwell on the earth was a phrase that was used exclusively of tribulation era unbelievers. To keep you from the hour of testing, an hour which is about to come on the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth, this is a promise to take you out in the rapture before the tribulation. Because dwell on the earth is a phrase that's used in Revelation chapter 6, which is the very first chapter that describes the tribulation period. So this is another promise to have a pre-tribulation rapture. The next one is also a reference to a crown.

And then there's, he says, I'll make you a pillar in the temple of my God. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God. And you will see shortly what that's about. And my new name. So here is Philadelphia, the second to the last, the sixth city. You see it there on the map. Here's the modern site of Philadelphia. Philadelphia's seal shown as the sun god in his temple. And then what we see there off to the left side of the picture there, Emperor Tiberius, the one who helped Philadelphia rebuild after the 1780 earthquake. And the city then called itself Neo-Caesarea. Neo meaning new, right? New Caesarhood. New Caesarville, if you will. So they gave themselves that name.

After the emperor Tiberius helped the city rebuild after an earthquake. The city called itself Neocesarea to show its gratitude for the assistance. So a new name. During the reign of Vespasian, who came from the Flavian family, the city showed its devotion to the emperor by calling itself Philadelphia Flavia. So we got a new name, right? So the new name thing was, you know, let's change our name every couple decades, right? And so that's why the reference there to a new name.

There were many temples to pagan deities and trade guilds meeting in these temples. It was a widespread custom in New Testament times to write the names of key contributors on the pillars of the temple, as you see here in this picture. So you take who are the contributors and you put their names on the pillars and that would be a permanent marker of who contributed rather than just keeping some list in papyrus. There was a Jewish synagogue in Philadelphia in the late 1st century AD. A 3rd century inscription from a nearby town also mentions a synagogue indicating the Jewish community lived in the area for a long time.

They were not a majority, but they were a significant minority. And that fits with the references there to the Jews. Okay, now we get to Laodicea, the last one. And by the way, one of the things that I'd like to bring up, we talk about it in greater detail in the Revelation elective.

But how many of you have heard the idea that these churches represent different ages during the church age, different periods of time? A number of you might have heard that. I don't believe that's the case. Two reasons. One is these churches are all at the same time, right?

That's part one. Part two is that it was first proposed by the Franciscans, you know, the Catholic order. And they did so around the year 1200. And everyone who has believed that since, they all describe themselves as Laodicean. I wonder why. That just seems odd. And so they keep adjusting the time over the centuries. Everybody thinks they're Laodicean. So it's a little too flexible. So anyway, I don't particularly follow that. And that's at least in part why. Now, the things we underline, this is Revelation 3, 14-22.

You are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing. And you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich and white garments so you may clothe yourself. And that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed and I said to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Now, all those things we've underlined are relevant specifically to the city of Laodicea. Let's go through it.

Here's Laodicea, the last in the circuit there along the Roman roadway. Now, something to focus in on, this is zeroing in in the area. What you have there is, here is Laodicea located there on the map. Colossae, which is upstream, and that's the city that received the letter to the Colossians.

Colossae, which is upstream, had cold water, a cold water stream running through it. Hierapolis, which is to the north there, had hot water. It had, in fact, mineral baths, as we'll soon see. And there was a pipe that ran underground. We'll show pictures of it shortly. that brought the water into Laodicea. And that by the time it got there, the water was neither cold nor hot. It was lukewarm. So Laodicea had all these advantages that we'll take a look at. But the great disadvantage that it had was, you want a cup of lukewarm water?

That's what you got. OK. The damage by earthquakes during the reign of Augustus, and again in AD 60, the city kept rebuilding with its own funds and even prospering. You know, we don't need any help. We're just so rich. We don't need any help, but thanks a lot. We sure appreciate it, right? And so they would keep prospering and rebuilding out of their own, you know, rich and wealthy resources. It was a center for a regional textile industry.

Now, notice what color did Jesus say the garments need to be? White. They were famous for having a black wool that was exceptionally soft. He says, nope, that's not going to do it. You need white garments, right? Now, here's a view of Hierapolis from Laodicea. There you see the white area.

That's white from the mineral baths and the hot water. It's about six miles away and it is so prominent and obvious you can see it at a distance. These are some ruins from Laodicea that you see in the foreground there. Here is a close-up shot of the white mineral bath. That's the white area that you see there. So here's a close-up of that.

So Hierapolis had the nice white cliffs off to the side and hot water. Here is a water pipe section. This is part of a water pipe that carried water from Hierapolis to Laodicea. So what you see there, there's the pipe and here is another section a little bit more close up. So there are sections of the pipe that are still in existence even though everything is fairly broken up by now.

So you can see by traveling underground, even though it started off nice and hot, it got to Laodicea lukewarm. Another thing, Laodicea had a medical school which was famous for its ISAV. They would take a local clay and mix it with olive oil and then package it up and then in order to mark up the package, this is an ISAV stamp. They would put whatever message about the contents, and here's where it came from, and that kind of thing, and mark it in a clay or wax seal in the container. So here's a typical ISAB stamp from the New Testament era. So he says, you know, you need to get SAB from me. You know, the stuff that you guys, it's famous for you, but it's not going to work. You guys are spiritually not seeing things here. Colossians 4, 1-3 mentions Laodicea and then focuses on spiritual riches. It is likely that that's to counterbalance the Laodiceans' tendency to focus on their physical riches. So here are the seven churches, the seven cities. Each of them has a unique background that comes out in the messages to the seven churches, it is rich.

One more thing, and that is that each of the seven churches gets a description of Jesus that's individual to them, but in great part draws from the description of Jesus from chapter one. So Jesus is described in chapter one and then those descriptions are spread out among each of the introductions to the messages to the seven churches. Revelation is truly a prophetic masterpiece. It is a phenomenal piece of writing. Let's see, so those are the seven cities.

Now, we're done with Bible backgrounds. Hope you enjoyed it. We're now shifting over next Sunday, Craig will be teaching for us, into church history. And we'll continue on with church history through the end of this calendar year. And so Craig will do an introduction for us. We'll have some handouts of a couple of different kinds for next week.

One is another one of those Rose Publishing pamphlets on church history, so you'll have a nice summary piece to work with. Another is a scan of the Geneva Bible, Ephesians 1 through 3. And one of the reasons why that's a really interesting piece of church history is the Geneva Bible was the first one to have verses. Before that, any printed Bibles had just chapters, but not verses. So it's the first one in English to have the verse breakdowns, and that's the verse breakdown that we use today. The Apostle Paul and all the other authors of scripture did not have chapter and verse breaks, right? Okay, so this will be the pamphlet that we'll hand out for you next week. And that's it. Questions? Comments? Inspirations? Yeah. I'm not aware of anything that would be specific to a door.

However, what's interesting is doorways are used twice as a picture in those messages to seven churches, because in addition to, behold I stand at the door and knock, there is also a door as an opportunity, spiritual opportunity of open doors for you.

And then the beginning of chapter 4, John goes through a doorway into heaven. So doors are particularly an entrance opportunity. used in different ways in the book of Revelation. That couples with something that we cover in the material on how to study the Bible, where we talk about gates. Gates are significant, so it works with gates. You think about it, what is a doorway? You're entering into a different space, you're entering into a different area.

And so like with gates, a lot of the commerce was done at the gates. If you didn't have a city marketplace, you would typically sell, buy and sell things at the gates. The elders would gather together and make decisions at the gates, right? If things were going well for a city and the city was happy, the gates are lifted up.

If people are really scared and depressed and sad, the gates are hanging down. So the gates were often used as a picture of various things other than a literal gate. Here's Jesus. You've got the narrow gate and the wide one, right? So gates and doors are both in scripture used as significant figures of speech, word pictures. And I would say it's not specific to Laodicea, but that was one instance of the two that I'm aware of where they were included in the messages to the seven churches. Other thoughts, questions? That's it? Alright, let's pray.

Lord, thank you for the wonderful insights that we've been able to have here looking through the Bible backgrounds material and we are glad that you have had written at your direction this rich book that the Apostle John was inspired to write and told to write. It's a book that's even said to have a blessing for those who read and hear it.

And so we thank you for that. We thank you that as we study your word, you are an infinite God who has inspired this infinitely deep text. We will never stop growing as we examine it lifelong. And we never come to a place where we say, oh, that's the end. Thank you, Lord, for what you've revealed to us because you love us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.