What Are The Seven Churches In Revelation?

[Paladin D]

I'm not sure as to what they are, or what they symbolize. I hear a lot about them from Protestants, being the actual stages of the "Christian Church".

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
3/26 - Fourth Friday of Lent

Paladin D,

I saw that a reply was long in coming for this response. I apologize.

The Protestant explanation that the seven churches in the Book of Revelation that you suggested is commonly known as "Dispensationalism" - that is, the Church is going through stages of existance where certain things are "allowed" and certain things "disallowed", and many will tell you that we are currently under the "Pauline Dispensation" and most of our focus should be on the Pauline letters.

What [i]any[/i] of the above means regarding real theology, I'm not sure - just that the Church doesn't approve of Dispensationalism.

The seven churches (Ephesus, et al.) are actual "dioceses" and the messages are to the bishops of those dioceses, mostly to shape up. Hope this helps.

Yours,
Pio Nono

[Carson Weber]

[quote name='Pio Nono' date='Mar 26 2004, 09:27 PM'] The seven churches (Ephesus, et al.) are actual "dioceses" and the messages are to the bishops of those dioceses, mostly to shape up. Hope this helps. [/quote]
It's actually been shown that these churches are listed according to their chronology on the Roman mail route. I forgot the historian's name..