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Revelation 2-3
In chapters two and three Jesus asks John to write to the seven churches in the Roman province of Asia which today would be western Turkey. Given the significance of the number seven in biblical numerology as the number of completeness or perfection, it is easy to say that the letter was to go to the entire church and that it contained not just a word for each of those individual churches named but also a universal message. At least that’s the way the book was received in the early church. I bet you didn’t know it but in the first couple of centuries of the church the Revelation was the most widely circulated book of the New Testament. During the Cold War and since, with the world threatened with nuclear annihilation, the book has been quite popular as well. For the rest of church history, the book was largely ignored and there were even some major leaders in the church who wanted it out of the Bible altogether because it was weird and provided ample food for fringe groups.
The seven churches were in seven cities that were connected together by a major postal route. John, in exile on a small island off the shore of Turkey, likely would have sent seven copies of the Revelation by means of a courier. The first went to Ephesus, the second to Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and finally Laodicea. The letters would have been read aloud when Christians gathered together to worship not in church buildings but in homes and most likely in the home of the wealthiest patrons as they had the big houses. Once one church read it, the letter would have gone to the next church in the area until all the small house churches in the city and its surroundings had heard it.
The Revelation was given to John to encourage Christians to remain faithful to Jesus during a wave of persecution that was beginning or soon to come. Persecution? Well, what typically happened in the early church was that either Jewish synagogue authorities or pagan religious authorities turned Christians over to the Roman authorities because they would not burn incense to Caesar as part of their civic responsibility. This was in fact an act of treason. Christians who would not worship Caesar as Lord and Saviour (two imperial titles) were arrested and usually made to fight wild animals or gladiators in the civic games at the coliseum. Persecution became a serious problem in the mid-90’s AD during the reign of Emperor Domitian who was insane enough to require that he be worshipped as a living god, the incarnation of a son of Jupiter. Emperors were believed to become gods after they died, but Domitian got a bit ahead of things.
It was not easy to be a church back then. They had problems that were unique to their day. In Chapters two and three of the Revelation John is instructed to write something specific to each of the Seven Churches addressing particular problems they each had. I’ll run through those briefly.
Ephesus had lost its first love. It’s agape love – unconditional, sacrificial love. Reading through the brevity of the language it seems that they had struggled against false teachers who wanted to be their leaders. They stood faithfully against them, but with a cost: their Christian fellowship had fallen second place to doctrinal witch hunts. It can happen that Christians can get united around correcting the theology of others more so than attending to loving and supporting one another.
The Christians in Smyrna were already facing persecution and impoverishment because the Synagogue authorities were very persistent in hunting out Christians. Christians could face being outcast in their communities and lose work for being different. That seems to be what they were going through but with the added burden of some of them being imprisoned for their loyalty to Jesus for which they could die.
Pergamum was the capital city and the Imperial Cult was strong there, and they had stood faithful against that. But there was another problem in the church there. They were tolerating among themselves, the Nicolatians, a group of Christians who taught that it was okay to feast with pagan worshippers and participate in the orgies those feasts became and not only that but it was okay if they themselves feasted like that when they celebrated communion. Jesus tells them to repent of that or he himself would come after them with the brutality of the two-edged sword…the Truth.
Looking at Thyatira, in many to most cities back then if you were a tradesperson, you could not work unless you were a member of a trade guild. Well, each trade guild had their own god to worship and that worship involved feasts and we all know that feasting led to dancing if you know what I mean. Therefore, Christians couldn’t work unless they participated in their guild’s pagan feasts. In response to that, there was a woman leader who claimed to have had a word from Jesus saying that it was okay for them to participate in the trade guild feasts and a good many of the Christians took her word for it. Jesus said some pretty strong words against her and those who followed her. But he also encouraged the others to remain loyal to him at all costs.
The church at Sardis was a perfect model of a “going-through-the-motions” inoffensive Christianity. Keep to yourself. Don’t confront. Just give the outer appearance of being good. There was apparently nothing that distinguished them from any other religion or civic club or guild. He told them to wake up and also encouraged the few there that were still faithful.
Philadelphia was the only church to receive no correction. They had recently been through a wave of persecution and had remained faithful. They were a fine example of what it is to patiently endure, to bear up under having their faith severely tested.
Finally, Laodicea; they were rich Christians. Their wealth had blinded them to their need for God. They were lukewarm; comfortable. Having everything they needed but really having nothing. Therefore, they were going to have to spend some time in the school of hard knocks, i.e., Jesus knocking at their door and they’d better have enough sense to open it or they won’t have Jesus with them. Ephesus had lost its agape love in an exchange for doctrinal fidelity. Laodicea sold it for wealth. They needed to learn compassion, to see and feel the needs that people have. That we love one another and how we do it matters. One cannot say, “I’m rich. I have everything I need. Therefore, I don’t need your love…it would make me look weak.”
That’s a snapshot of the church back in that day and I would say even in our day we can find some commonalities. As you could see their main struggle was with fidelity, with remaining faithful to Jesus and his kingdom whether it be in the face of outright persecution or avoiding cultural appropriation. Through these churches the Kingdom of God was breaking in through the reign of agape love. It was important that their loyalty to Jesus shine brightly through acts of compassion, through warm fellowship, and that they abstain from the unrestrained hedonism involved in the worship of other gods even if it cost them their job or led to systematic persecution.
Jesus tells all these churches that in the face of this testing of their fidelity, they must conquer. Conquer is an imperial word involving winning in war. Just as Rome led by the emperor had conquered most of the known world, so they also are to conquer. But, in the Revelation conquer does not mean take up weapons and dominate and oppress. Quite the opposite. It is to stay loyal to Jesus, keep the confession of faith and live as communities marked by agape and a lack of hedonism. In our culture where the gods of power, wealth, sex, consumerism, and the Almighty “Me” are readily worshipped, we face the same challenges the early Christians did – do we follow Jesus taking seriously his one commandment that we love or do we seek political power by joining the Imperial Cult, judge one another’s doctrinal purity, party with the hedonists, or probably the worst thing of all…simply just fit in? Will we conquer…? Amen.
