Thursday Bible Study

  {SEVEN LETTERS}    The Attractiveness of Suffering_   Revelation 2:8-11     In the year AD 177 persecution broke out against the Christians living in what is today the French city of Lyon. Christianity had raised the suspicions and hatred of the Roman  bureaucrats who governed the city. The vicious persecution that raged, touched Christians at every level of society. After the persecuti on subsided, church father Irenaeus, arranged for a letter to be written to Christians in other parts of the Roman Empire describing the faithfulness of the  martyrs...   We  can’t  even begin to put into words, much less describe in detail, the  magnitude  of the persecution here: how the pagans raged so terribly against the saints, and how the ble ssed martyrs endured so patiently... To begin with, they nobly endured all the abuse the whole mob collectively piled on: screaming  at them, punching them, dragging them through the stre...

{SEVEN LETTERS}   Lost Love_   Revelation 2:1-7     As Jesus moves among his churches in Revelation 2-3, he looks carefully at each  group of Christians and evaluates what they are doing in his name. In the church at Ephesus, Jesus finds a lot to praise, but his heart is broken by one glaring absence.. .     [Read Revelation  2:1-7]     If you had just  relocated  to Ephesus and visited the Ephesian church, what would impress you about this group of believers?       How does it make you feel to hear Jesus say to you, “I know your deeds”?     What do you think Jesus would commend about Oakham church?     How would you or the leaders of your church test people who came into your church community claiming to have spiritual authority?     What would you do if they were shown to be false teachers?     The Ephesian church was full of hard-working, dedicated believers , but as Jes...