I love to teach from the book of Revelation. It is such a hope-filled and worshipful text. I remember teaching Revelation the first time at to a Sunday School class at McMannen United Methodist Church in Durham, NC, back in the early ’90s. It was a great group of people and they endured me teaching them the 22 chapters in 17 months (so about 70 Sunday classes; yikes!).
About a week ago, I found a sheet of paper in a Bible I haven’t used for awhile that came from that period. I had challenged the class to come up with a way to remember the seven Asian churches John wrote. PELTS (actually P2ELTS2) was always an easy way to remember the churches. There are two churches or cities that begin with P and two that begin with S and one each for the E, L, and T. So they are Philadelphia, Pergamum, Ephesus, Laodicea, Thyatira, Sardis, and Smyrna.
The problem is that P2ELTS2 (I think it was Van Gross who came up with that memorable acronym), though easy to remember doesn’t give you the churches in the order that they appear in the Revelation. On the sheet of paper I found in the old Bible was another memory aid (that if memory does serve, was coined by Roger Adema) that helps one remember—though you have to recall the phrase and you still won’t have the actual order of the cities in chapters two and three. Still, here is Roger’s memory aid: Extra Long Super Subs Produce Paunchy Tummies (which I can attest to).
P2ELTS2 is easy and memorable and Paunchy Tummies is fun but I wish I could think of a memory aid that gives them in order: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea.
