Revelation 2:18-29 To the Church in Thyatira

 

This summer we’re taking a look at Jesus’ letters to seven of the churches in the area around the Mediterranean. These are all churches that were planted and started by Paul and others who travelled through the area bringing the good news of Jesus Christ. Religious, cultural, and government leaders felt threatened by this new faith in Jesus; a man crucified, buried, and then raised from the dead according to his followers, a man who claims to be God and is coming back again to claim this world and the entire universe for his kingdom. This often led to persecution and the rise of false teachers who mixed the teachings of Jesus with the practices and teachings of other faiths.

Jesus, through a vision to John who’s exiled to the island of Patmos because he refuses to stop worshipping Jesus, writes a number of letters to encourage and challenge these seven churches. This is a vision of hope. We come now to Jesus’ letter to the church in Thyatira. This is a city based on manufacturing and trade which lies close to the city of Philippi. Paul meets Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from Thyatira, in Philippi. It’s also likely that Lydia had an influence in bringing the Gospel news of Jesus to Thyatira.

Thyatira also has a temple to the god Apollo. Apollo is Zeus’, which explains why Jesus identifies himself as the Son of God, the only time we hear Jesus identified as the Son of God in Revelation. Zeus is the father god, controlling the weather and hurling lightening bolts at his enemies. Jesus’ words are a challenge to these Greek gods using images of power and strength to show who he is, “These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.” Jesus is the only true Son of God; Apollo and Zeus are imposter gods. 

Jesus begins by praising the church, “I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.” There’s good stuff happening here! Love and faith and service hearts all coming together during times of persecution and stress reveals that Jesus’ teaching and way has really shaped them. There’s some really healthy faith life growing going on here and Jesus acknowledges it. Their first love is strong and they’ve embraced James’ teaching that faith without deeds is dead by living out their faith in deeds and service. Reminds me of Bethel in so many ways.

Yet, there are some big issues that Jesus has with this church, “You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.” Jezebel is leading people in the church down a different path than the one Jesus has called us to walk, a path based on his teaching, his life, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus warns them about tolerating the prophet Jezebel whose teaching is leading them to participate in pagan practices, including sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols. Hearts are being pulled away from Jesus. There’s a desire to embrace the cultural stuff that goes against the way of Jesus and hurts our faith. Members of the church are trying to fit into the culture around them while also trying to follow Jesus at the same time. If we’re honest with ourselves, many of us wrestle with these same impulses at times, wanting to fit in with our culture while also following Jesus, even if it means that we sometimes try to change Jesus’ teaching to fit our culture.

W.J Harrington writes in his commentary on Revelation, “The livelihood of Christians in Thyatira depended on membership of the trade-guilds, and therefore pagan association. Already, in Corinth, Paul had had to deal with the problem of guild-feasts and the purchase of meat that had been offered in pagan temples. John took a radical stance: there can be no compromise…. At stake was the question of assimilation: to what extent might Christians conform to the prevailing culture for the sake of economic survival or social acceptance? For John the only answer was: Not at all.… John was profoundly concerned that the communities be steadfastly united in face of the all-out persecution he felt sure was at hand. This was no time for internal conflict.” Jezebel is teaching that they can participate in the feasts and temple prostitution even while following Jesus. Jesus tells them that it doesn’t work that way. When we commit to Jesus, he claims every part of our life and loyalty.

The name Jezebel echoes back to a time in Israel’s history where a foreign queen led the nation of Israel far from God. We find her story in the Old Testament book of 1 Kings 16. Jezebel marries King Ahab of Israel and she brings her gods Baal and Asherah with her to Israel and they prove so popular with the Israelites as they mix worshipping Baal with worshipping their own God Yahweh, that at one point, the prophet Elijah cries out to God, wondering if he’s the only one left in Israel who is still worshipping God alone. Baal was a god of the fields, a fertility god so as part of worshipping Baal, Israel was drawn into sexual immorality and celebrating Baal with feasts, including food sacrificed to Baal. The echo in this letter to this Jezebel is strong and why Jesus comes out so strongly against her.

You can’t serve two gods at the same time. Jesus warns us in Matthew that we have to choose who we will follow: we can’t follow both God and Mammon at the same time. Jesus demands 100% loyalty. I’ve been told that Jesus is asking too much from us, but “How much non-Jesus stuff can you let into your mind and heart before it becomes so normal that you don’t even recognize that your loyalties have changed?” Isn’t Jesus’ death on the cross for our lives reason enough to give him our complete loyalty? Jezebel wouldn’t die for you. The Bible warns us to watch out for false teachers, for people who will come and teach a different way than Jesus. In the early church there were the Gnostics who taught about secret knowledge that they had about God that only they knew, here Jesus mentions Satan’s so-called deep secrets. Not sure what these deep secrets are, but they’re not healthy.

I mentioned Tertullian a few weeks back; even this great Church Father was led astray from orthodox Biblical teaching by the Montanists who had some strange ideas about the Holy Spirit. One way to test any teaching is asking, “Does this teaching make Jesus less and something, or someone else more; does this teaching help us walk in the way Jesus taught?” Knowledge and education are important and a beautiful gift from God; good and wise teachers are precious and valuable, but knowledge and education always come through someone else, and their beliefs and ethics will shape how they teach and interpret what they teach. This is why it’s important that our ethics and morals are shaped by Scriptures and Jesus and that what we hear and learn is taken in with a good knowledge of Jesus and Scripture. Any teaching that makes Jesus less important and the teacher or group more important is leading you down a wrong path.

Jesus gives Jezebel opportunities to repent, but she refuses. Jesus warns that he’s going to allow Jezebel to suffer the consequences of her actions because leading people away from Jesus has eternal consequences, “So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead.” One of the most intimate images of our relationship with Jesus is that of marriage and there are echoes of this image in Jesus’ punishment of Jezebel and those who accept her teaching. Jezebel will find herself on a bed of suffering rather than a bed of love and faithfulness. Those who accept Jezebel’s teaching have rejected Jesus, and they will also be punished. There are consequences for those who tolerate false teaching and practices that lead people away from Jesus.

Jesus ends his letter with encouragement to keep focused on him and he will reward them, “To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations… I will also give that one the morning star.” I love the promise of the morning star, a promise that Jesus will give us himself. Jesus’ last words to the church in Thyatira is to listen and hear what the Spirit says to the churches, a reminder that the Spirit has been given to us to point us to Jesus and to remind us to all that Jesus taught. This helps us to figure out true teaching from false, to grow in Jesus and become who Jesus has called us to be. Learn, grow in knowledge, study hard because Jesus calls us to work in all areas of life, but be aware of who your teachers are and what they believe and test it always with Jesus and his teaching and life.