Bible Rebel

Nicanor is the main character in our short historical fiction episodes showing how the Book of Revelation may have first traveled from Patmos in the Aegean Sea in the first century to the churches in Asia Minor—and eventually to the whole world and people in every age since.

During this “Armchair Apocalypse” series, we’ll follow Nicanor on his travels to better understand the Book of Revelation by exploring the people and the times in which it was first revealed.

The last words of John’s Revelation still hung in the cramped upstairs room in Ephesus. Oil lamps flickered against plaster walls as perhaps twenty believers sat shoulder to shoulder—Jews, Greeks, slaves, merchants, men and women. Jacob ben Ezra, the church elder, had read John’s letter aloud in Greek, and nobody had checked the time. They had heard about beasts, Babylon, persecution, judgment—and a slain Lamb who ultimately conquers.

They knew Rome’s power firsthand. When John wrote of an arrogant empire demanding allegiance and persecuting God’s people, they didn’t need a prophecy chart. They knew what oppressive power looked like. And when they heard Christ say, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life,” they understood that following Jeshua the Messiah might actually cost them theirs.

By sunrise, Nicanor was preparing to leave. He pulled a rough wool cloak over his knee-length tunic, tightened his leather sandals, and secured John’s precious scroll inside a leather wrapping beneath his cloak. Outside, Ephesus was waking up. Merchants shouted in Greek along its broad marble-paved streets. Carts rattled over stone. Sailors called from the harbor. Somewhere beyond the rooftops towered the magnificent Temple of Artemis—a constant reminder that Christianity was definitely not the hometown religion.

Jacob walked with Nicanor toward the road leading north. Before they separated, the elder lowered his voice. “John warned us that many antichrists have already come.” Nicanor knew the words from John’s teaching. An antichrist wasn’t merely some mysterious supervillain waiting thousands of years in the future. John had warned believers about deceivers already operating in their own world—people denying Christ and opposing the truth. “Even now are there many antichrists,” John had written (1 John 2:18 KJV). Jacob gripped Nicanor’s shoulder. “Watch whom you trust.”

Nicanor understood the danger. The scroll hidden beneath his cloak contained language about beasts, kings, Babylon, judgment, and a kingdom that would outlast every earthly empire. To believers, it was hope written in symbols they could recognize from the Hebrew Scriptures and their own world. To Roman authorities who understood its implications, it could sound dangerously subversive.

The Emperor demanded loyalty. John proclaimed Jesus Christ “King of kings, and Lord of lords.” If the letter were discovered and interpreted as defiance of imperial authority, Nicanor could find himself standing before a magistrate—and giving the authorities another excuse to investigate the churches receiving it.

Nicanor tightened his cloak and started north along the Roman road. Behind him, the noise of Ephesus slowly faded. Ahead lay miles of dusty road, roadside shrines, inns, merchants, soldiers, strangers—and plenty of opportunities for the wrong person to ask the wrong question. Beneath his cloak rested a message Rome could never completely suppress: Empires fall. In the end, every knee will bow, not to the Emperor, but to the resurrected and returning Jesus Christ. Evil loses. God wins. Somewhere farther up the road another small gathering of believers waited to hear the Revelation.

Smyrna.