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REVELATION • Victory in Jesus • LESSON 6 (May 20) Revelation 2:1-7: To the Church in Ephesus 1.What should we make of the repeated “To the angel of the church in _____” phrase? (2:1) 2.Jesus is perfectly aware of the following attributes of the church in Ephesus. How would you describe these positive marks in your own words? “I know...”(2:2-3) “Your works” – “Your toil” – “Your patient endurance” – “How you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false” – “You are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake,and you have not grown weary” – 3. “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” How could a church receive such positive praise (2:2-3) and be diagnosed with such a serious problem (2:4)? 4.What is “the love” Christians have “at first”? 5.How is “the love” we have “at first” sometimes “abandoned”? 6.“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (2:5). What, in your own words, is Jesus calling the church in Ephesus to do? 7. “If not,I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent” (2:5). What does this mean? 8.We know scarcely little about “the Nicolaitans” (2:6). Why is it important that disciples of Jesus “hate the works” of certain people? How do we know who those certain people should be and how can we balance “hating the works” while loving the people as Jesus would have us love? 9.“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (2:7). We’ll hear this phrase repeatedly in Revelation 2-3. What does it mean? 10. “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (2:7). What would it mean, practically speaking, for a Christian in Ephesus to “conquer”? What would it eventually mean for this conqueror “to eat of the tree of life”?