We have been working through a series on the book of Revelation. This book of the Bible can be difficult to understand for a variety of reasons, so we are taking it slow and studying it bit by bit together.

In Chapter 1, verse 16, John describes Jesus. “In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.” In verse 20, Jesus explains to John what the seven stars are. “The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” We reviewed the seven lampstands and the seven churches in prior posts; we are going to focus on the seven stars in this study.

It is important to note that the seven stars that Jesus holds in His hand represent human leaders for each of the seven churches. The seven church leaders that Jesus told John to write to in verse 11 of Chapter 1, are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

We can conclude the seven stars are the church leaders for three reasons. First, while it can be confusing because the word “angels” is used in many translations, the original word “angelos” means messenger. This is the word that was used at the time of the writing of Revelation to describe a human messenger, such as a pastor or elder, who carried an important message. The important message the angel of each church in Revelation would deliver was the letters that John was writing from Jesus. The pastor was to read the letter to the entire congregation of the church.

The second reason the term angels refers to the church pastor is that portions of the letters are addressed to an individual. When Jesus is speaking to the pastor of the church, the grammar is singular. There are some instances where the pastor either causes or allows things to occur in the church that Jesus does not like. When Jesus addresses the entire congregation of the church, the grammar is plural. His tone and grammar changes to convey whether the pastor or the congregation is allowing problems in the church.

The third reason we can conclude that angel means pastor is that there are several verses written to an individual that call for repentance. Angels who are the heavenly beings have no need to repent. If they committed sin; they would not be beings in heaven, sin cannot be in the presence of God. Jesus did not die so angels could repent and inherit eternal life, He only died for humans. The heavenly angels have already had their eternity decided based on their choice to follow God or Satan (see 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6). We will cover the calls to repentance for specific individuals in future posts as we study each letter in detail.

Let’s pray. Father in heaven, thank You for Jesus. Thank You for the wisdom that we have in the Bible. Lord, help us to apply Your Word in our everyday lives. Lord, help us to study Revelation and give us understanding. In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.