Rev 1:9-11, 2:4-5 | Family | STEP | Brother--companion ; a fellow-Christian, who, with others, was suffering persecution on account of his religion. Patmos ; a desolate island in the Aegean sea. For the word of God ; on account of my fidelity in preaching it. He had been banished to Patmos by the persecutors of Christianity.

Revelation of John 1:9-11

Brother--companion; a fellow-Christian, who, with others, was suffering persecution on account of his religion.

Patmos; a desolate island in the Aegean sea.

For the word of God; on account of my fidelity in preaching it. He had been banished to Patmos by the persecutors of Christianity. In the Spirit; under his miraculous and prophetical influence.

The Lord's day; the first day of the week, commemorating the Lord's resurrection, and observed as a day of divine worship, the Christian Sabbath.

A great voice; that of Jesus Christ. Verse Re 1:13. The fact that the first day of the week was regarded by the apostles and first Christians as, in a special sense, the Lord's day, and that it was known and kept as such, devoted to divine worship and acts of beneficence throughout the churches, indicates the will of God that it should be observed in all coming ages as the Christian Sabbath. 1Co 16:2. Ephesus; the capital city of Proconsular Asia, lying near the Mediterranean sea.

Smyrna; a seaport of the Mediterranean about forty miles north of Ephesus.

Pergamos; on the river Caicus, about twenty miles from the sea, and sixty miles north of Smyrna.

Thyatira; a city in the province of Lydia north-east of Smyrna.

Sardis; a city east of Smyrna, and about thirty miles south-east of Thyatira.

Philadelphia; about seventy miles east of Smyrna.

Loadicea; a city in the west of Phrygia, about a hundred miles east of Ephesus.

Revelation of John 2:4-5

Left thy first love; for the abatement of which no steadfastness in outward services can be a compensation, since it is the heart that Christ desires. Do the first works; devote thyself as earnestly and heartily to my service as at the beginning.

Remove thy candlestick; extinguish the light of thy church--an awful warning which Christ fulfilled long ago to the church in Ephesus, that has been for centuries extinct, and which he has fulfilled to many unfaithful churches since.