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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
The Lord's day
The day early Christians kept for Jesus, most likely Sunday, the weekday of the resurrection. In the cities of Asia one day a month was already given to honoring the emperor.
A family that keeps one night a week for dinner together knows that night says something about who they are. John says his vision came on the Lord's day. Most scholars take this to be Sunday, the day of the week on which Jesus rose, which the first believers had made their day to meet. In the cities of Asia one day a month was already set aside to honor the emperor, so naming a day for the Lord said something too. Whether John means every Sunday, Easter, or the coming day of the Lord is read in more than one way.
Most scholars take the Lord's day to mean Sunday, the weekday of Jesus' resurrection. Keener suggests the early Jewish Christians may have preferred that day so as not to clash with the Sabbath. The CSB Study Bible says it had become the Christians' day of worship. It points to Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2, where believers gather, or set money aside, on the first day of the week. The ESV Study Bible calls it Sunday, the day Christ rose. Beale notes that by the later second century the phrase is used plainly and consistently for Sunday, and he cites the Epistle of Barnabas 15:9. The setting in Asia sharpens the name. Keener writes that in Asia Minor one day a month honored the emperor, while the Christians gave a day, probably each week, to Christ. The cultural backgrounds notes report the same contrast as a suggestion some scholars make. Some Jewish schemes of history ended in a seventh age of sabbath rest. Some early Christian interpreters moved the picture to an eighth age and called the Lord's day the eighth day. Keener leaves open whether these ideas are early enough, or close enough, to bear on John. In Revelation the day frames the whole vision. John is in the Spirit, which Keener and the cultural backgrounds notes connect with prophetic inspiration, as in Ezekiel. He hears a voice like a trumpet, which Keener hears as an echo of Sinai.
An analogy: a country that marks a monthly holiday for its ruler, while a small group in every town quietly keeps its own weekly day for someone else. Nothing is said aloud, but the calendar shows whose people they are.
Because the first day of the week had become the day believers met, John's vision on the Lord's day in Revelation 1:10 comes as the churches gathered, and the meeting on the first day of the week in Acts 20:7 and the weekly collection of 1 Corinthians 16:2 show the same habit. In a province where a day each month honored the emperor, keeping a day for Jesus marked whose people the churches were.
Not a protest day. In the analogy the weekly day answers the ruler's monthly one. The Christians' day was the day of the resurrection, and the contrast with the emperor's monthly day is a suggestion some scholars make, not a stated aim.
What day is meant. Beale reports the view that the phrase means the end-time day of the Lord, which would make the whole book a vision of that day. He answers that the adjective is never used that way in the Greek Old Testament, the New Testament or the early fathers, and he prefers every Sunday to Easter Sunday. The cultural backgrounds notes give the contrast with a monthly day for the emperor as a suggestion some scholars make. Keener allows that the name may also look toward the coming day of the Lord.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-1-9-20\/","n":"Revelation 1:9-20, Patmos, the Lord's day, lampstands and stars","s":"On the island of Patmos, in the Spirit on the Lord's day, John hears a voice like a trumpet telling him to write to seven churches. He turns and sees one like a son of man among seven golden lampstands, holding seven stars, who holds the keys of death and Hades and explains what the stars and lampstands mean.","r":"Revelation 1:9-20"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 1:9-20 (comment on 1:10)
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:10
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Revelation 1:10
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:10
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, on Revelation 1:10a
