Orthodoxy Isn't Enough

Did you know you can sign up for a service with the United States Postal Service called Informed Delivery? It is free, and what it does is it sends you a daily email with scans of pieces of mail headed toward your mailbox. This means that you can know what is in your mailbox before you even open it. I have used it for years, and it has been very helpful in keeping me informed of what is coming and whether it is worth going to the Post Office that day or not.

If you don’t already know, the IRS will never call you. Anyone who does claiming to be from the IRS is scamming you. They will always send you a letter first. The IRS has the ability to really mess with your life if you owe them money, and they are going to let you know that you owe them money with a letter. So, because I have this Informed Delivery service, I get notified about a day in advance that a letter is coming from the IRS. I don’t know what is in it. I just know where it is coming from. So my heart sinks every time I see a letter coming from the IRS. Thankfully, so far, the letters are to inform me of social security stuff, mandatory disclosures, and stuff like that. But the panic of an audit or a claim that I owe thousands in back taxes somehow always comes over me when I see the IRS envelope in my mailbox.

In Revelation chapters two and three, John is recording letters that are to be delivered to the seven churches named in the previous chapter. I wonder how these churches felt upon hearing that a letter was coming from an apostle who had a vision and received these letters from Christ himself. Were they excited? Were they nervous? Did it feel like they were getting a call into the Principal’s office? Was it like getting a text from their boss saying, “We need to talk...?”

Every church receives a short letter and in every letter there is something for every church to learn. Let’s take a look at the letter to Ephesus.

Revelation 2:1–7 NASB95

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. ‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. ‘Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. ‘Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’

Most of the letters to the churches follow the same pattern. It begins by affirming what is going right, followed by a problem that needs to be addressed, followed again by another affirmation of something that is going right.

The church in Ephesus was facing intense pressure and a lot of resistance. Ephesus was a port city. It sat on the eastern coast of what is now the nation of Turkey, accessing the Aegean sea. It was a very affluent city, and home of one of the ancient wonders of the world: the temple of Artemis, the goddess of hunting, the wilderness, childbirth, and the care of children. Ephesus was the epicenter of worship to this goddess. This church, founded by the apostle Paul, had been around for about 40 years by the time this letter was written and delivered.

Jesus is speaking to a church that is passionate, but a church that is tired. They have maintained zeal, but at the risk of abandoning something even more foundational. When that occurs, the church begins to lose its vitality. If it goes on long enough, the church loses its impact.

Healthy things grow. Unhealthy things die. How do we maintain a healthy atmosphere in our church? We need to care about orthodoxy (the right beliefs), but we also must care about what orthodoxy should lead to: love.

To maintain its vitality, the church must pay careful attention to the balance between orthodoxy and love.

The church was praised for very good things. They stood strong against evil and against those who called themselves apostles. Then they were called out for abandoning their first love. Then they were praised again for rejecting the behaviors of this group of people called Nicolaitans. From this, we can gather three ingredients to maintaining church vitality.

Stand against false doctrine.

Jesus saw the church’s hard work. Every church can fall into a pattern of wondering whether their work is making a difference. We go out, we connect with people, we share the love of Christ with them, but the culture seems to fall further away, not closer. A church has entered the depths of despair. But this one verse reminds us that Jesus sees our work, and it matters to him, and the success of an endeavor belongs to him, not us.

But just because success belongs to him, not us, does not mean we are passive participants in the process. The Ephesians were working. They were laborers. They were out there scattering seed, watering the soil, and letting God bring the growth. Their work mattered, and if they didn’t work, there would be no harvest. If you don’t plant seeds, the seeds won’t grow.

Their work included not tolerating evil men. One of the ways that manifested itself was them rejecting those who called themselves apostles and were found to be false. Discernment is key in assessing whether a claim has scriptural basis or not. The church is always called to combat false theology and false doctrine. Virtually every letter in the New Testament addresses this in some way.

Right now, millions (if not billions) of dollars are being spent on political ads and shoved in your face about every ten seconds. You and I have gotten more unsolicited political text messages and phone calls than any previous election cycle. You are angry for two reasons. First, you are angry with the volume of political ads you have had to endure this year. Second, you are angry because you know all of them are liars. It’s not just the volume of political propaganda, it is the content of false claims in them. When the truth is distorted, we should be upset.

James Talarico should get zero votes from the Christian community on the grounds that he is wrong about God, about Christ, about gender, and abortion. He claims God is nonbinary. He thinks Bible stories in schools is morally reprehensible but teaching the same young minds they can change their gender is a moral virtue. We must stand against anyone who should hold such a platform. He does not stand with God. He stands with Satan.

We must stand against false doctrine every chance we get. We should care enough to do our homework and investigate every truth claim that would contradict the Bible. We must uphold orthodoxy. This is what the Ephesian church is praised for.

Model love for Christ and his bride.

The church in Ephesus cared deeply about right doctrine. They fought hard to preserve it. But that fight came at a cost. They had left their first love. Christ calls them to repentance, to return and do the deeds they did at first. Now, just about everybody agrees that what Jesus meant was that the Ephesian church, even in their zeal of upholding the truth, neglected to model love for Christ and his bride.

Now, when Jesus was approached and asked which was the greatest commandment, how did he respond?

Matthew 22:37–40 NASB95

And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Orthodoxy matters. The truth matters. But so does loving God with everything we have and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Have you ever been so upset at someone for believing the wrong thing that you don’t really love them? That’s basically the world we live in today. There is a danger in having zeal for orthodoxy. It can bring us to an “I’m right and you’re wrong” attitude that sows division. We are divided enough.

If I care so much about the truth about transgenderism, but can’t sit down and talk to someone going through it, I have elevated zeal over love. If I care about my position on divorce but can’t sit with someone who is going through it, I have elevated zeal over love. I heard a story about a woman who fell on hard times and couldn’t tithe to the church. The leadership of the church told her she couldn’t come back until she was caught up on her tithes and handed her a letter with how much she owed. They lost their first love.

Orthodoxy is very important, but elevated above love becomes dangerous. Orthodoxy elevated above love becomes weaponizing. When that occurs, the vitality of a church dies. If we love one another in the absence of orthodoxy, there is no structure, and false beliefs lead to false behaviors.

Stand against sinful behaviors.

The church in Ephesus was given a warning: repent or your lampstand will be removed. But then Jesus closes by affirming the church’s hatred of the deeds of the Nicolaitans. The history of this group is cloudy. They are mentioned here and in the letter to Pergamum. These people must have lived among these churches, but sources agree that their behaviors included participation in pagan idol worship through the eating of meat sacrificed to idols and immoral sexual practices. They were a group that seemed to marry the concept of Christ with the religious teachings of Gnosticism, which is heretical. Gnosticism suggests one is saved through special knowledge and emphasizes that the material world is evil, and the spiritual world is good. Jesus would be a created being in Gnosticism, but the idea that a spiritual being would take on flesh is abhorrent.

So those who claimed to be followers of Christ were engaged in practices that were antithetical to the gospel, and were rightly rejected by the Ephesian church. They took a stand against sinful behaviors. The church in Pergamum is chastised for allowing such behaviors to remain in the church. To be Christian is to be called out of the darkness to live a life separate from the way the rest of the world lives. We hold to an objective moral truth, which the world around us rejects. It is our job to protect the holiness of the church, or sin will corrupt it.

Jesus gives us an order for church discipline in Matthew 18:15-20 that is to be followed when it is discovered that a member is living in sin. First, you go to that member privately to address it. If he will not listen, you return with a few others. Lastly, you take the matter to the church. We do this not to punish the brother, but to protect the unity and holiness of the church. Toxicity does not resolve itself. It must be removed.

The vitality of the church requires these three things. If the church of Christ is to endure, it must hold the line between orthodox and living out the two greatest commandments. Orthodoxy without love leads to legalism. Love without orthodoxy leads to compromise of biblical convictions. We must hold on to both.

Where are you in holding that line? Do you find yourself championing the cause for right belief that you can’t sit across the table of those who don’t believe the way you do? Have you championed loving others so much that you have excused their sinful behaviors? Maybe you have thought that orthodoxy is not important. Doctrine, that is the teaching if the church, is vital to its health. It is out of that teaching that we learn to love one another. Challenging conversations may be in order and they may need to begin with ourselves.

May the lampstand of our church burn bright by the way we uphold orthodoxy, model love for Christ and his bride, and stand against sinful behaviors.