Thyatira (Rev 2:18-29)
Notes
Transcript
The Seven Cs
The Seven Cs
Introducing the 7 Cs to look out for in each letter:
Church
Christ
Commendation
Conviction
Correction
Call
Conquerors
Church
Church
This is Thyatira. It means daughter, and was probably named this when a ruler was away and found out his wife had given birth to a daughter back home.
It was not very important politically, but quite economically active. It was particularly known for dying purple cloth, aka the most expensive stuff. It was a place of buying and selling. Thyatira was a city of guilds. If you were a leather-worker, you’d join the tanners’ guild. If you were a purple-dyer, you’d join the dyers-guild. Part social club, part trade union, part religious society. London still has guilds, and the guilds elect a Lord Mayor each year, who lives for a year in the Mansion House near Bank station.
The church at Thyatira wasn’t particularly well known, and if you visit today, the ancient ruins are hard to find amidst the modern Turkish town of Akhisar.
Picture of Akhisar
Christ
Christ
Each of the letters repeats some aspect of the description of Jesus in Revelation 1:12-19.
So here we have:
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
This is Jesus speaking about Himself, as the ‘son of God’. And the description is like the description in the Old Testament book of Daniel, from hundreds of years earlier, when Daniel had a vision. Daniel was so terrified he collapsed, and everyone with him ran away. This is what he saw:
5 I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist.
6 His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
So this description of Jesus in Revelation 2 is linking him to the figure that Daniel saw. In other words, he is claiming that he has been there all along, throughout the history of God’s dealings with people.
Commendation
Commendation
Almost all the churches are commended for something. In GCSE results week, let’s start with the good grades…
19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
Commentators like to point out that this is the shortest commendation, and it precedes the longest conviction. That’s true, but there’s a lot packed in here. It’s like triple science. What are their deeds? They are deeds of love, trust, and of service. They are known to Jesus for perseverance. This church have a lot to celebrate. I would be really happy if Jesus said one of those things about our church, let alone all of it. And to crown it, they are on an upward trajectory. Unlike some churches who are at risk of falling and fading, this church are growing in their goodness.
Conviction
Conviction
But then comes the long conviction - four verses of it. And this can be hard to hear, so consider this a trigger warning:
20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: 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.
21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.
22 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.
23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
This church gets a lot right, and a lot wrong. I think the picture we get here is of a church that is mixed.
Oil and water
This is a church known for goodness, love, faith, but also has in it a core of people who are following a woman who self-identifies as a prophet. She is teaching that sexual immorality and playing around at the edges of paganism are compatible with Christianity, and Jesus calls her out.
There’s a difference here between those who follow false teachers, and those who teach. If you are struggling with sexual sin, the message of Jesus is a message of hope for you. You are welcome here. God is for you. He sees it all, and He has turned towards you, not away from you. But there is no room for leading others astray.
This passage uses symbolic language, like a lot of Revelation. It harks back to Jezebel, a queen of the Northern kingdom of Samaria who you can read about in 1 Kings 16. The original Jezebel brought idols into the heart of power. She was greedy and ruthless. We don’t know this woman’s name, but like Jezebel she is causing people to turn away from the reality and goodness of God, and towards idols and paganism.
Even then, there is hope, and grace. Maybe like me you jumped to verse 23 - I’ll strike her children dead. But first, there are at least two opportunities to turn towards the light. Jezebel herself is given time:
21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.
And then her followers are also given time to turn back, in verse 22.
So then we get to verse 23:
23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
Most commentators agree that this is still symbolic language here. It would seem really out of character for Jesus to be threatening to kill children. What’s much more likely, and what fits with the way this book is written, is that this is about the destruction of this woman’s following. Because what’s at stake here is not just this church, but all the churches.
There are two main schools of thought when it comes to Christianity and violence. One is Just War Theory - the idea that in very specific circumstances, and with minimum collateral damage, there are times and places where war is not only justified, but necessary, particularly in self-defence or protection of the weak. The other is non-violence, or Christian pacifism. Both have good arguments. What you won’t find is any serious Christian argument for revenge or brutality.
But doesn’t Jesus sound quite vengeful here?
My own conviction is that Jesus teaches non-violence, and that He calls his followers not to take revenge. He offers grace to everyone. He seeks out those who the rest of us say are beyond the pale.
And yet, He also tells us that this era will end. And when it does, there will be justice. Wrongs will be righted. If you’re on the side of the oppressed, that’s great news. If you’re on the side of the oppressor, that’s terrifying. And most of us are kind of a mix of both!
In this short letter we see the patience of Jesus, but we also see that this patience has a deadline.
Deadline
Some of the people in this church are compromising too much with the world around them. Maybe if we’re honest we can understand the challenge of that. We’re not called out to live in a safe Christian community - Jesus sends His followers out into the world. But with that comes risk. Remember the guilds. If you’re a potter, or a fabric-worker, you have to be a member of a guild. But many of the guilds would centre their social life around the local gods. So if you’ve become a follower of Jesus, what do you do? We know from the New Testament that people really wrestled with this question. We know that they came to see a difference between eating meat bought from a seller who might have engaged in some religious rites, versus attending a full-on pagan feast. We know that it was sensitive, and some believers who came from those backgrounds might have been more sensitive to it than others. Paul’s advice was to bear with those people in love.
But some people took, and maybe still take, a different tack. They over-spiritualise the way of Jesus, such that pretty much everything that doesn’t hurt anyone else is fine. As long as everyone consents, do what you want. People will say that in the church today, and I think it’s worth saying that it’s not supported by anything at all in the Bible. This feels really contemporary. You’ll see yoga in church halls. You can find pastors who will encourage you to leave your spouse and move in with someone else if the sex isn’t good enough. Nothing new under the sun
Correction
Correction
In most of the other letters, the conviction is followed by a correction. Here’s the problem, and here’s what to do. But this ‘Jezebel’ and her crew already know what to do - they’ve been called to repent again and again. There’s not some deep new thing here - they need to do what God has said all along. And to the rest, the ones who haven’t been involved in this:
24 Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you,
25 except to hold on to what you have until I come.’
And it might be obvious to us here, but it’s worth highlighting what isn’t said. There is no suggestion whatsoever that the faithful few should take matters into their own hands. They’re not told to go witch-hunting. Nor is there any violence.
They’re just told to hold on to what they have.
Be very, very skeptical of anyone who wants to tell you that they have access to hidden, elite knowledge. By and large, the way of life can be traced as a thread right back to Jesus. I love our church, but we’re not the one true church. The world hasn’t been waiting with bated breath for our day, and for our special brand of church. Jesus is scathing here about the ‘so-called deep’ secrets - he says they’re actually of Satan.
There’s no secret sauce - just hold on to what you already have. He’s writing to Christians, who are obviously mature enough to have seen through the lies being taught in their church. Just hold on. Nothing heavy, just hold on.
And I don’t want to minimise how hard that is. There are places in this world where just holding on can mean death and persecution. Even closer to home, it can be deeply discouraging when those who should be on the side of Jesus are joining forces with the world to lead people to wander.
But it’s not just ‘hold on’. It’s hold on until I come. Things will be put right. This is the now and not yet, but one day everything will be now.
When I’m running, a lot of the time I hate it. When I started out, a friend told me that the biggest battle when running is not your body, but your mind, and it’s true. When I’m pounding the pavement, I have various things I say to myself is that I don’t give up. My favourite one right now, as I’m a bit slower than I want to be, is ‘you’re faster than the sofa!’ But when I’m in a race, it’s different. I’m thinking of the end. I’m thinking of the people at the finish line. I’m thinking of how great I’ll feel when I’m no longer running, but I get to know that I ran.
Jesus doesn’t just call them to dig in an hold on til they die, but to hold on until He comes. Some of you are better at holding on that others, but let’s make sure that it’t not just grit, but eyes on the finish.
Conquerors
Conquerors
So what happens for those who win?
To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’ —just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give that one the morning star.
Jesus is making reference to a prophecy from the Psalms.
Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.
You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
Right now the faithful in this church are small and weak in their society. I want to test the idea with you that being weak might be the best thing the church can be. The faithful in this church must be feeling even smaller. The powerful majority isn’t just out there, it’s in here. The pagan culture they thought they left behind them is infiltrating the church. But Jesus says there will be a reversal. The weak will reign with Him. That’s the end result of the great exchange. Jesus takes on our sin, our shame, our failure. He gives us His glory, even His authority.
I don’t often want to rule the world. When people play music without headphones I plan my global dictatorship. But otherwise, I don’t particularly delight in the idea of reigning with Christ. But I wonder if that’s part of the advantage I have from my era, my citizenship, my education, my skin colour? I have brothers and sisters who would do more than just smash all the mobile phone speakers if they ruled the world. They would smash the weapons that fly over their heads and into their homes. They would smash the caste system, the secret police, the factions and powers. And Jesus says they will. Empire will end, in the reign of Jesus the messiah.
And He reminds them of the morning star. The one that rises in the darkest part of the night, before the morning comes.
Call
Call
29 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
So will we listen? I can’t take that for granted, for you or for me.
How will we listen?
Will we accept the message about Jesus in its fullness? LORD, giver of second-chances, ruler of the nations? Will we accept all of Him? What’s the alternative?