Bible Study

Opener

Having a job is weird after the first few weeks

You start off by giving it your all, putting love and care into everything you do

But as time roles on and you begin to no longer appreciate the redundancy of most jobs

doing the same thing all day every day

You grow bored, even restless doing your job, you begin to run on autopilot

you lose the love you once had for that job

Ephesus had a similar situation, looking at Rev 2:1-7

The Text

Verse 1

“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:

Ephesus was a pretty important city in journey of Paul

This is a major city of Asia Minor

Paul spent a large amount of time at Ephesus, about 3 years

If you remember on Paul’s last missionary journey he was returning to Jerusalem but made a stop to see the elders of Ephesus

The One referenced here is Jesus (Rev 1:20)

The 7 stars are the angels of the 7 churches

the 7 lampstands are the 7 churches (this will be important later)

also notice that there are 7 letters written to 7 angels and 7 churches

Verses 2-3

‘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.

They have been doing some good stuff

They have persevered beyond adversity and persecution

They are holy people, not putting up with people who claim to follow Jesus but refuse to act like it

They are able to discern true teaching from false teachings

They have persevered in doing good works in the name of Jesus, remaining consistent in their labors

Verse 4

‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

Jesus now rebukes the church

they have been doing good work, but they have left their first love

The word for love here is the one we hear about all the time, that agape love, or godly love

They are doing works, but lost their love

the big question is what is this love

Love/devotion for God

Love towards non believers

Love towards fellow believes

It’s not really clear which and if you take a look at this passage in numerous commentaries, you’ll find that they disagree on who the recipient of this missing love is

Another interesting angle here pointed out to me by the Bible Knowledge Commentary is that this was written about 35 years after Ephesians

In Ephesians Paul applauded their love, so that means something changed

That something may be that enough time has passed for the church to be mainly composed of second generation Christians

this new generation lost the love that their predecessors had

Verses 5-6

‘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.

This is the same lampstand referred to in verse 1

It is a threat for Jesus to remove Ephesus as a church

Note how important Jesus makes love here

He wants their motivations for their works to not be because they ought to, but instead to be motivated to good works out of love

Love for God and for man

Now do note that we have a rough idea how they responded

They seemed to not repent

After the 5th century both the church and the city declined

The immediate area hasn’t been inhabited since the 14th century

Jesus finishes this off with another commendation, that they hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans

Nobody really knows who these people are, scripture never clarifies their identity

But we can gather from this and other passages that they propagated some form false teaching

Verse 7

‘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.’

Jesus asserts here that this message isn’t just important to Ephesus, but that everyone needs to hear and take heed of what has been said here

We need to learn from this

Jesus finishes out with an encouragement

To those who overcome the challenges presented in the letter, eternal life will be given to them in heaven

Take Away

It’s easy to get caught up in works and obedience and lose the heart aspect of it all

We need to be consistent in action, but also in our love

Love needs to be our base motivation for doing these things, we have to be consistent with it

Questions

What were the Ephesians consistent in?

What were they not consistent in?

What is the main take away from this passage?