PATMOS

Small island in the Aegean Sea, located about 35 miles (56.3 kilometers) west of the city of Miletus off the coast of Asia Minor. Patmos is about ten miles (16.1 kilometers) long and six miles (9.7 kilometers) wide at its northern end, consisting of rocky volcanic hills.

In Revelation 1:9 John says that he was on the island of Patmos “for preaching the word of God and speaking about Jesus” (nlt). He also indicates that he is a fellow participant in their “suffering.” The Roman historian Tacitus informs us that the Romans used some of the Aegean islands as places of banishment and exile during the first century (Annals 3.68; 4.30; 15.71). Thus the language of the author and the evidence of Tacitus, joined to Christian traditions from the second and third centuries about John’s banishment, support the likelihood that Patmos was a place of exile or political confinement.

In a time when the Asian churches were undergoing persecution, John wrote to them from this island. He addressed each of seven churches by means of a letter of encouragement and warning. The series of letters is followed by the author’s account of the divinely sent vision of impending judgment, which “must soon take place” (Rv 22:6). Patmos, then, was the location from which this NT writing originated.