Chapters two and three of the book of Revelation describe seven letters or messages from Jesus for the seven churches of Roman Asia. These messages introduce the following overall themes:
1. The Chiasm of the Seven Churches. The seven churches are structured in a typical Hebrew style (see commentary below for details).
2. Encouragement in Trouble. The messages to the seven churches exhibit both spiritual decline and a corresponding increase in the number and weight of promises made to each church.
3. Christianity’s Greatest Advance and Its Contemporary Consequences. The message to Philadelphia forecasts a time of great missionary advance. But that advance included aspects that have put Christianity on the defensive today.
4. The Message to Thyatira Is Different. The churches as a whole exhibit spiritual decline. That is also manifest locally in the messages to Ephesus, Pergamum and Sardis. But the message to Thyatira goes against the grain in a couple of ways.
5. Laodicea and the Final Era of Earth’s History. Evidence from the text supports the idea that Laodicea represents the church at the close of Christian history.
The messages to the seven churches have a common structure, similar in form to ancient letters. 1) Jesus addresses each church by name. 2) He then introduces Himself to each church, using characteristics drawn from chapter one. 3) He offers an analysis of the strengths and/or weaknesses of each church. 4) Jesus provides counsel suitable to His analysis of each church. 5) An appeal is made to listen to the Spirit. 6) Each message concludes with a promise or promises to those in each church who overcome. In messages four through seven (beginning with Thyatira), numbers five and six are reversed.
Thought… From reading your summary of the 7 Churches, on the same page you mention that they follow a Chiastic/Hebrew format, and then you make reference to the Laodecian church being symbolic of the last church, which is of dispensational origins. If in fact they follow a chiastic format, which I happen to think as well, would that no mean that the main focus/thrust of the message would be on the middle church of Thyratira? (In dispensational, the only church that is relevant to us today is Laoedica. In a chiastic form, every church is relevant to us today. With this in mind, it becomes easy to find elements of the final generation in each church and not just the last….).
You make excellent points. I would see it as both/and rather than either/or. The seven churches are not primarily apocalyptic, so multiple applications are the norm.