Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us

as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse

on the podcast, The Whole Council of God.

Father Stephen holds a PhD in biblical studies,

and it's an Orthodox priest serving

at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church

in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Okay, so we'll get started. When we get started here, in just a moment, we'll be picking up in the apocalypse of St. John, also known as the Book of Revelation, also known as the

Revelation of St. John, chapter two,

verse one. So we went through chapter one last time that was sort of the beginning of St. John's

vision. He was in worship in whatever worship space he had. We know this is sort of a cave on the island of Patmos.

We know it's a cave because you could go there and see the cave.

This was in a cave.

There was a salt mine on the island of Patmos.

That's where St. John was exiled to.

And while he's there in the worship space,

he has this vision where Christ appears to him in glory.

And he is staying there with seven lampstands.

He has seven stars that are the angels of these seven churches.

The seven lampstands represent the seven churches.

So these are seven churches.

It's Ephesus, the city of Ephesus of the area around Ephesus, which is, these are the

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