For the opening statement see 2.1, 8. Laodicea, south of Philadelphia, was a wealthy and flourishing commercial city, the home of manufacturers of articles made from native wool famous for its glossy black; it was also the center of banking operations, and of the worship of Asclepius, the god of healing. The church there had a close relationship to the neighboring churches in Hierapolis and Colossae (see Col 2.1; 4.13, 15-16).

The words of: see comments at 2.1.

The Amen: the word itself is an affirmation, “It is so” (see 1.6), or a wish, “So be it.” Here its meaning is that Christ is the guarantee, the confirmation, of all God’s promises and plans (see also 2 Cor 1.20). In languages that already have a term used by churches that expresses the meaning of Amen, that term may be used in this context.

The faithful and true witness: see the comments at 1.5 for the faithful … witness. Here faithful, applied to Christ, refers to his reliability as a witness of God’s message, and true to the content of his testimony. So this phrase may also be rendered as “the one who reveals the truth about God faithfully.”

The beginning of God’s creation: in English this could be understood to mean that Christ is the first being created by God; this, however, is not what the text means. As translated by Good News Translation, “the origin of all that God has created” (note Revised English Bible “the source of God’s creation”), the meaning is that Christ is the one by means of whom God created all things, and in many languages it will be translated this way (see John 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2). The same Greek word for beginning is used also in Col 1.18 in the sense of “source.” As the TEV footnote indicates, the word may mean “ruler” (so New International Version), but the other meaning is preferred by the large majority of commentaries and translations. Most translations use “origin”; a few use “source.” The phrase God’s creation means “what God has created”; in this context it includes everything that God has created.

An alternative translation model for this verse, beginning with the quotation, is:

• The one who is called the Amen gives this message (or, says all these things). He faithfully reveals the truth about God, and is the one through whom God created all things.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .