Contemplative Bible Reading

Revelation 1:9 (New Living Translation)

9 I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God’s Kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus.

This sentence is early in the Revelation written by John and kept at the end of our current New Testament. John preached the word of God and preached that the carpenter’s son from Nazareth was the Son of God sent to take away our sins. Because of this preaching, John was exiled to a little rock out in the Mediterranean Sea.

Patmos is still a little rock out there in no where. There are 3,000 persons living there today to host tourists who want to see the place of John’s exile. Still nothing happening there.

One of the lessons we can learn is that for a Christian, there is no exile. John probably lived in one of the many caves in the rock of the island. While there, John prayed and listened to what God told him. He recorded God’s words of the doom of Satan.

Paul was exiled to prison several times. While in prison, he prayed and listened to what God told him. He recorded God’s words for mankind.

Seems this “exile” business did the opposite of what some folks wanted to happen. They wanted to shut up some of these folks who talked about Jesus as the Son of God. The result was these folks wrote things that have been read by countless others over the last 20 centuries.

Is it possible to “exile” a Christian? Is it possible to send a Christian so far away that they cannot listen to God? It appears that exiling a Christian is impossible.

Stuck somewhere? Listen to God. Please God, help me to listen and do what it is you wish.