The letters from Jesus to the seven churches not only described conditions among those bodies of believers at the end of the 1st century AD, they also outline the history of the Christian church from the Resurrection through today.

Also: Why the temple of Apollo on the island of Patmos is significant.

Jesus dictated letters to the seven churches of Asia—but they were addressed to the angels of the churches. Traditionally, it’s been taught that the angels were bishops, human leaders of the Christian communities in what is now western Turkey.

We suggest that the letters were actually sent to angels, just as the book says—supernatural entities who were perhaps responsible for overseeing and protecting the churches.

A brief outline of the Book of Revelation and how it’s been interpreted by Christians over the centuries.

John was the youngest of the apostles, the last one to die, and the only one we know of who wasn’t martyred for his faith. We summarize what we know about John, explain why we believe he was the author of Revelation, and discuss the odd rumor that John wouldn’t die until Jesus returned.

The political and social changes of the centuries before John wrote the book of Revelation turned the world of the apostles upside down. We summarize the political and social changes from Antiochus Ephiphanes to Domitian, including the 1st century myth of Nero Redivivus, the belief that Emperor Nero didn’t die in 68 AD and would return someday, possibly as the spirit inside another evil Roman emperor.

Parallel scriptures in Matthew 24 and Luke 17 say the days of the coming of the Son of Man will be like the days of Noah and the days of Lot. We suggest it may have something to do with the ancient cult of the dead.

Genesis 6:1-4 records a strange incident in humanity’s distant past: Angels, called “sons of God,” saw that human women were desirable and chose to defy God by taking them as wives, producing the giant Nephilim. We explain why this was an actual event, and how the spirits of the Nephilim are prophesied to play a role in the end times as soldiers in the army of Antichrist.

The Garden of Eden was on the holy mountain of God (Ezekiel 28:13-14). Eden was at Jerusalem, and it’s where the battle of Armageddon will be fought.

Derek and Sharon Gilbert begin a new weekly program that analyzes end times prophecy in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. This week, we discuss a supernatural entity who may have rebelled even before the serpent in Eden—Leviathan.