Bible Study – Revelation 1:9-3:22

Summary: Having a passionate faith is a wonderous thing for our heart soars with joy as we experience intimacy with God. But our passionate faith often fades, especially when we face challenges, and then our heart wanders away and begins to love created things instead of the Creator. How do we get back to loving God primarily and passionately? By remembering all that he has done, is doing, and will do for us.

Big Idea: Through repentance and faith, Jesus brings us into a life with him that is far richer and fuller than we could ever imagine.

Part 1: Introduction and Context

1. Opening prayer:

• Ice-breaker/check-in: Has there been a time in your life when you were headed down the wrong path and God turned you around? If so, what happened?

• Background to the Passage: 

The book of Revelation is a prophetic message which Jesus gave to an angel to give to John so that Jesus’ followers could have the comfort of knowing how God is unfolding history. It is a challenging book because it contains a lot of symbolic language which we do not understand as well as people did when it was written. Fortunately, there are several internal clues about what various symbols mean.

Revelation is also a very comforting book because it contains beautiful descriptions of how things will be at the end of time after Jesus comes back to this world to make us and all thins right.

The seven letters are dictated by Jesus to John with instructions to send each letter to a specific church. However, it is likely that all seven churches received all seven messages, including the one meant specifically for them, in the Book of Revelation. Therefore, we could think of the seven letters to the seven churches as one letter to the entire Christian Church.

Most of the letters include the good that Jesus sees, the bad that Jesus sees, a call to repentance, and a promise for those who repent. Because these seven letters are located within Revelation prior to the prophetic message, we can say that repentance is necessary, not only for our relationship with God, but also so that we can hear what God is saying to us.

• Read: Revelation 1:9 – 3:22

Part 2: Understanding the Passage

1. Questions
   • Where was John when he received this vision from Jesus?What do the stars in Jesus’ right hand represent?What do the seven lampstands represent?For each church, answer the following questions:What is the good that Jesus sees in this church?What is the bad that Jesus sees in this church?How does Jesus call this church to repent?
   • What promise does Jesus give to the people in this church who repent?
   • Why is repentance so important?
   • Which of the seven churches do you think your church is most like?
   • Which of the seven churches do you think you might be?

Part 3: Discussion and Reflection

1. Do you have any questions, insights, or observations to share from the passage?
2. What is God saying to you through this passage?
3. How has this passage changed how you think of repentance?

Part 4: Conclusion and Application

1. Summary:
   1. What does this passage tell us about God?
   1. What does this passage tell us about ourselves and the world?

• Practical Application: What are specific ways that we can apply what we have learned from this passage to our lives?

• Closing prayer

This Bible Study focuses on the same passage as the sermon on February 9/25 from Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley BC & St. Luke Lutheran Church in Surrey BC