{"id":260,"date":"2004-07-04T21:52:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-04T21:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/2004\/07\/04\/a-letter-to-our-church\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T19:48:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T19:48:03","slug":"a-letter-to-our-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/2004\/07\/04\/a-letter-to-our-church\/","title":{"rendered":"A Letter to Our Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Can you imagine getting a letter from Jesus to your church?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s the situation that seven churches in Asia Minor found themselves in when the Apostle John penned the book of Revelation. The book starts out with the statement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p> Revelation 1:1-2 &#8211; The <strong>Revelation of Jesus Christ<\/strong>, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Each of the seven letters contains a revelation of who Jesus is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Ephesus<\/strong> &#8211; holds the seven stars in His right hand\/walks among the seven golden lampstands<br>\n<br><strong>Smyrna<\/strong> &#8211; first and the last\/who was dead, and has come to life<br>\n<br><strong>Pergamos<\/strong> &#8211; hath the sharp sword with two edges<br>\n<br><strong>Thyatira<\/strong> &#8211; eyes like unto a flame of fire\/feet are like fine brass<br>\n<br><strong>Sardis<\/strong> &#8211; hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars<br>\n<br><strong>Philadelphia<\/strong> &#8211; holy, he that is true\/he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man openeth<br>\n<br><strong>Laodicea<\/strong> &#8211; the Amen, the faithful and true witness\/the beginning of the creation of God\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can you imagine getting a letter from Jesus to your church? That&#8217;s the situation that seven churches in Asia Minor found themselves in when the Apostle John penned the book of Revelation. The book starts out with the statement: Revelation 1:1-2 &#8211; The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}