Revelation 1:9-11 John's salutation to his readers

Revelation 1:9-11 John had been exiled to Patmos because of his faith (the Word of God) and ministry (testimony of Jesus) according to early church history, by Domitian, who was the Roman emperor from 81 to 96 AD.

          John identifies three aspects of common experience in Jesus with his readers: tribulation, kingdom, and perseverance. Being a fellow participant in Jesus' kingdom implicitly assumes that this is connected to the tribulation and perseverance that were the common lot of anyone identifying themselves with Christ during this period in history. This certainly colors the nature of the rest of the book. John was not writing to believers who were at peace with the world system to warn them of coming tribulation, but to those already experiencing it.

          John was in the Spirit. We can take this to be that he was under the anointing of the Holy Spirit in such a profound way that he was open to hearing Jesus' voice and seeing both Him and visions of heaven and of future scenes. In the Revelation, John records things told to him as narration throughout, but the things spoken to him are predominant in chapters 2-3; visions of heaven in chapters 4-5,15 and 21-22; and visions of things which will shortly take place both in heaven and on earth (and the connection between them) in  chapters 6-14 and 16-20.

          The voice then announces the mailing addresses for the following words. Although each local church is usually associated with a handful of verses in chapters 2-3, the voice tells John to write what he sees to these churches; what John sees are visions recorded in chapters 4-22.

          These are churches that were geographically located in what was then called Asia, modern Turkey. John was on Patmos, a small Greek island only 50 km off the coast of Turkey. So the immediate context of the prophecy is that John was in exile but not too far from the Roman province of Asia, in which the Roman persecution of Christians was an ongoing experience. He receives a revelation of Christ which he is directed to record and send to these churches. The purpose of this entire book appears to be to encourage them to persevere even as they jointly partake of this suffering.