The whole thing is a letter my friend.
It was most likely on a scroll which was read when it was received to the surrounding congregation. To be encouraged at the soon return of the messiah to be ready.
People in those churches preached and told others what was stated in this letter.
The ending is a reminder of the beginning.
Those churches no longer exist, as well. With lessons to learn by reading what John was told to write to them.
In my opinion I believe the Gospel reached the whole known world they had lived in. And now it’s literally everywhere, the Gospel of Christ. What a blessing has the Son of God made for all.
Hello,
Just desire to share some thoughts,
When it comes down to it. Human beings will decide for themselves what they will believe. All of whom are of the human race; all make decisions in our life; with also the family unity (when our parents had children). We learn from each other through growing up, and also having spent time with others.
There are those who unfortunately do not have or should I say make the decision to live good and they may try to do evil, and harm others, physically or mentally, even steal from you, and leave you with nothing at all. The fact is all of us are evil, and we start off by being so as a child.
Just take a toy away from a child, and see what the child decides to do. Especially when it involves another child of the same age.
Children can be jealous, envious, suffer from depression and sadness, greedy, they can plot evil to harm others, and that is I suppose why Jesus said that as Christian’s we should be as Children of God by believing in the Father and the Lord Yeshua, whom was the Word sent from Yahweh to reconcile the world back unto himself having paid for the price of sin having allowed his body to take on sin, which was buried and then rose again by the Father with the Holy Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit of God resides in us today and that is because Jesus had promised to have sent it to his apostles. The same is for us today, where God will put his love on your heart to be lead by the spirit of you so choose to put him in your life, of course, first before anyone or anything else. Because of Jesus and believing in him, and the promises he had made; such as being able to feast with Abraham’s, Isaac and Jacob, and so many from west to east are proclaimed to also be joining them in the Heavenly Jerusalem.
There seems to me; many partakers of faith that relying in the return of Christ. The reason for that is I suppose through all humans have been reconciled to God and can become spiritually made alive being reborn spiritually, human beings are ultimately dead inside until that Light starts to come in. Who is the Light of all mankind? The Lord Yeshua, the one whom when God had spoke his Word, created light in the very beginning.
There are some that simply also hope to see something that would be interesting like on the movie screen of earth being trampled and over taken by fire or perhaps the moon is crashing into the planet, or even nuclear bombs.
So many things to consider that is all based on the worldly and earthly; conspiracies which I’m not saying it’s not fun to entertain for me personally; I just like to try to be heavenly focused and not so much earthly focus even though there are times of failure. It’s part of the experience of trusting in God to help you, and you make effort to talk to him daily and have him in your life.
These are the more important things to focus on; while trusting and relying on Jesus has to say about the destruction of Jerusalem and also those who would be taken from it, and you also have the Revelation as a whole if you own a Bible.
My suggestion when it comes to reviewing and relooking into the book of revelation it’s best to really set your own preconceptions and notions, and what you have been taught aside and reading it out loud to yourself and listen to what is being said: this is an admonishment or encouragement to anyone reading.
Also while your going through note things down as you go along that you notice and find interesting, and consider what you are reading as it is very Jewish in nature and sometimes there is exaggerated saying in there. Like some considering “Earth” means the whole earth, in reality if you look it up yourself you’ll see it refers to land, and that land would be the surrounding areas of the specific people of the churches which are being written to by John the beloved, in which was a vision and revelation of who Christ Jesus was, with a warning of a swift return and to be ready.
It’s up to you what you place your hope and faith in or on; or what you would like to see in your own future life perhaps of things that could possibly be done in our lifetime.
My choice is the victory, of Christ Jesus, and Revelation 21-22 are still part of the letter but most agree on it being a different scene of what the Heavenly Realm is like and who is there, when you read those chapters. It completely differs from everything else and is new compared to chapter 20.
