Good Evening Everybody,
We had a whirlwind walk through 2000 years of church history this morning in dealing with the Mystery of the Seven Churches in Revelation 1:19 – 3:22. I will summarize our discussion below. I appreciate all the questions and comments both during and after class. It encourages me, because I know that our discussion is making you think.
Rob Hefner asked about the timeline of the churches and where the dates came from. I had the dates written in my Bible from study years back. I spent some time today researching the dates of the ages of the churches. The one thing I discovered is that there are many different thoughts and opinions of the time frames. Some get very exact in their dates. I just know that there are 7 literal churches that John is writing to, and 7 different ages or specific economies that represent the history of the church age.
There is a period of time of transition at the end of each church economy, phasing out the old economy and into the next. This time of transition could be as much as 40 years or more, to fully move into the subsequent church economy. All 7 churches are operating in some form at any given time during each specific economy throughout the 2,000 years of the Church Age.
The one constant that all the authors were in agreement on is that we are definitely in the Laodicean age headed straight into the Day of Christ, the rapture of the Church.
As I stated this morning, the times of the ages of the churches, listed on the board, are just approximations. I am not a theologian, but the chart below can help with the simple understanding of the different ages of the Church. This mystery is not mysterious to us.
