Sermon Tone Analysis

Summary

Revelation 2:8-29 contain the letters to the churches of Smyrna, Pergamum, and Thyatira.

A number of content items in these verses draws on items discussed in episode 360 (Rev 2:1-7).

In this episode, we rehearse some of that older content, comment briefly on the “synagogue of Satan” phrase, but ultimately focus on new connections to the Old Testament: the believer’s reception of “hidden manna,” a “white stone,” and a “new name.”

Revelation

We’re going to get all the way through.

Because again, this isn’t verse by verse or anything like that.

We just go through the chapter and if it has some link back into the Old Testament (John referencing something in the Old Testament, doing something with an Old Testament passage), that’s our focus.

We are not going through Revelation to talk about Blackhawk helicopters and microchips and nanotechnology and all that kind of stuff., it’s biblical theology.

We look at the text.

The Old Testament

And so Revelation repurposes the Old Testament a lot.

And if you’ve been following the series up to this point, you know that it gets messy, too, because John just sort of assumes that you have a solid grasp of the Old Testament and you’re going to know where he’s getting stuff.

And then you’ll be able to ask the question, “Why are you doing that, John?”

And if you have a real good grasp of your Old Testament, you’ll sort of be able to figure that out.

So that’s what we’re doing as we’re tracking though Revelation.

Last time, we took the first seven verses (the letter to the Ephesian church).

And in this case, we’re going to pick up a few more churches in verses 8-29, which goes to the end of the chapter.

But we’re going to have to do a little review from the last class.

Because in this chapter we hit (for instance) the Nicolaitans, which we need to say something about.

But we already commented on it in the last episode.

We actually ended last time with a reference to the Nicolaitans.

Again, that was verse 6 at the time.

But we’re going to run into the Nicolaitans again in Revelation 2:14-15.

I’m not going to spend too much time on this.

But if you recall, last time I quoted from Aune’s commentary on Revelation, his Word Biblical Commentary.

And he wrote:

The Nicolaitans are mentioned explicitly only in 2:6 (in the proclamation to Ephesus) and 2:15 (in the proclamation to Pergamon).

In 2:6, it is simply said that the Ephesian Christians hate the works (i.e., the behavior) of the Nicolaitans.

In 2:14–15, the “teaching of Balaam” is apparently identical with the “teaching of the Nicolaitans” and consists of eating meat previously sacrificed to pagan deities and the practice of fornication.

Aune goes on in his commentary to wonder if Revelation 2:20-21, with its reference to “that woman Jezebel” might be linked to the Nicolaitans because both are described in relation to eating meat sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality.

And the answer to that is going to be “yeah,” because what this is really angling for is these aberrant practices.

There’s a reason why John is referencing two prominent examples of idolatry and immorality that he wants to warn the church about.

There’s a reason he picks two prominent examples of just that (Balaam, Jezebel) because he wants to create this very negative association.

And you know, the sin of Balaam is clear enough (we noted this last time).

Israel was led to worship idols and commit sexual immorality as a result of his influence and counsel.

That’s Numbers 22-25 (those three chapters).

And this is one of two necessary points—these connections to Balaam specifically, and then Jezebel is looped in.

You have to sort of understand what the referents are to understand the consensus of scholars about the Nicolaitans, that they weren’t actually a literal sect.

Rather the term is pejorative.

“Nicolaitan” is a pejorative term designed by etymology (you may recall this from last time) to link idolatry and immorality in general with Balaam of the Old Testament.

You say, “Well, how does that work?”

Well, both terms… If you divide up Nicolaitan you get νικᾷ λαόν(nika laōn), which means “he or it overcomes the people.”

And in rabbinic literature, the rabbis took the name Balaam, and you could divide that into syllables too, doing etymology: bil‘ām, or bela’ ’am or balah ’am.

Those derivatives mean essentially the same thing, “he or it who consumes the people.”

You could also go ba’al ’am, “he lords over people,” or “he or it rules over the people.”

So there are certain etymologies that sound suspiciously like νικᾷλαόν (nika laōn), “he or it overcomes the people.”

And so therefore, these terms, when they’re broken down into constituent parts, mean essentially the same thing.

And it’s for that reason (and, we should add, the specific absence of a historical sect that corresponds to John’s era)… It’s for those two reasons that scholars think the term Nicolaitans is just a functional pejorative.

So we covered that last time.

We’re not going to stop at verses 14-15 here to go over it again.

So if you’re listening here for the first time (and you didn’t listen to the previous episode), you’ll wonder, “Well, why are you skipping the Balaam stuff?”

Well, it’s because we’ve already covered it and now we’ve reviewed it.

So on to the rest of chapter 2. And there isn’t a whole lot of specific(“specific” is the operative word) use of the Old Testament here.

There are some rabbit trails, though, that we need to take.

And there’ll be some stopping points—some signposts along the way through the rest of chapter 2.

Let’s go to verse 9, where there’s a reference to the “synagogue of Satan.”

Let me just read the reference to get a little context here for you all.

So Revelation 2:9:

So there’s this reference to this thing.

John continues in verse 10:

So that’s essentially the guts of the letter to the church at Smyrna.

That’s

Revelation 2:8-11.

And we get this reference to the synagogue of Satan in verse 9. We’re going to see the same or similar reference later in 3:9.

So the question is, “What is that?”

Now some say just because have the word “synagogue” here (synagōgē), that has led some to say that the phrase “synagogue of Satan” is inherently (that’s a key word—inherently) anti-Semitic.

And that, I’m here to say, is nonsense.

Okay?