The 7 Churches Revelation Chapter 2

It is traditional to believe that the seven churches of Revelation represent seven different periods of history. This is quite difficult to prove. While it is possible to recognise certain churches in these two chapters of Revelation and even possible to see your own church there, I would argue against such a strong position as believing that these are seven different periods of history. Most people think of the church as having been severely persecuted in the past. You could understand John Nelson Darby (whose study Bible had much to do with modern theories about the book of Revelation) believing this because he lived in the 1830s. Darby could easily have believed that the church, at some time in history, was violently persecuted, therefore assuming all the persecuted churches of Revelation to have been in the past and that the church of the present (then the western church of the 19th century) was now far more comfortable and therefore lukewarm. If Darby taught this, he also assumed that he was actually living in the last of the seven periods of history. Most theologians believe they are living in the last period of history, whichever century they are in. Neither can any of us be absolutely certain of this. The problem is that 200 years after Darby the church is considerably more persecuted than it has ever been before, the terrorist attacks on Nigerian and Indian churches comparable even to the great persecution of the church under certain Roman emperors. If we are to say that the lukewarm church of Laodicea represents the church in the last period of history and the severely persecuted church represents the church in ancient history, this is only true in certain parts of the world. It is also true that not all churches in western countries are lukewarm. Leonard Ravenhill met a man who had emigrated to Germany in the early 1970s (I'm guessing this date from the video tape recording being in black and white.) The man said that in Germany a church was either alive or dead, it would feel either hot or cold. In America he felt nothing. It's obvious that churches in Germany were not lukewarm, only American ones. 

It would take a considerable amount of imagination to connect the first of the seven churches in Ephesus with the church of the Biblical era. This is the traditional position. I can see no obvious connection between this letter and the first century church. This would be a cruel allegation to make about the church of the Apostle Paul unless there was a compelling case to say this from Scripture. Much of Scripture points the other way, to an early church that was actually well known for its love, at least in some places. Chuck Swindall points out that the church of Biblical times, just like the churches in America and Germany in the 1970s, was different in different places. Corinth was a deeply troubled church. Most of the Christians there were immature and carnal. If Paul wrote 1Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter, he knew a lot about love. Neither did he machine gun the Christians in Corinth for their lack of it, although he machine guns them in many other ways. 1Corinthians is an angry letter, so much so that 2Corinthians contains an apology for having to be so cruel. But never does it point out a lack of love. In 2Corinthians 2 Paul says that he had written a very strong letter to Corinth the first time, as he had been deeply upset by some things he had heard, and had made up his mind not to visit Corinth in person. In Colossians 1:3,4 Paul commends the Colossians for the love they have for all the saints. The same is true of the Thessalonians in 2Thessalonians 1:3. If the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch, was it not because of their love for one another? Remember also that if the church at Ephesus had lost its first love it must have been loving at one time. Which first century church does this letter refer to and at what time? It is impossible that the letter to the church at Ephesus represents the general state of the church during the lifetime of the apostles.

What does it really mean to be a church that has forsaken its first love? "I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you can not tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. You have persevered and endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place." Sometimes a church can be very strong on obedience and strong on service but it can feel bullying and oppressive. This passage reminds me of a church I attended as a student. I remember one of the leaders, with an angry look on his face, standing in the pulpit on a Sunday morning and saying, "Tom and Barbara stood up in this church in March and gave a word that, if we didn't get our lives sorted out, our candle would be removed." He seems to have missed the whole point of Tom and Barbara's word that the church was strong on obedience but loveless. The candle of the church at Ephesus was removed (the harbour silted up and the city is now only ruins) but not due to disobedience to the rules, as this church leader appeared to be thinking. We were faultless in our obedience to rules. This church leader would ask everyone, if he were leading a Bible study, "Did you remember to bring your Bible? Would you come to work without your tools?" The house group leader constantly warned us that if we forgot our personal time of Bible study and prayer in the morning we would have a bad day. There were all sorts of things Christians were told not to do and places that Christians were told not to go. As a Christian, there is nothing wrong with choosing to avoid certain people or certain activities but in our church the fear of the Lord, even though a good principle in itself, had become the most important thing in Christianity. An elderly man was leading the Sunday morning service and asked, "Have you got the fear of the Lord this morning? Have you got the fear of doing anything that displeases him?" We asked God to make sin as abhorrent to us as it was to him. But this meant that our motivation was a hatred of sin and a fear of displeasing God. Nothing that we did was motivated by love for God and love for others but only by fear. This is very subtle. We thought that we were being holy. We thought that we were becoming mature Christians by behaving in this way but we actually had no love.

The second letter is to the church in Smyrna. "I know your afflictions and your poverty - yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life." The poverty of the Christians in Smyrna was very great. The Greek word means destitute, to have nothing. To be a tradesman in Smyrna meant making the occasional sacrifice to Caesar in order to get the seal that had to go on an official document. In those days the unemployed had nothing. This letter applied directly to the church in Smyrna but also to all Christians persecuted everywhere and all Christians who have lost their jobs or been in prison because of their faith. Jesus promises them a crown of life. It is only the most persecuted churches in the book of Revelation that have nothing bad said about them. There are no negatives in this letter. Persecution refines a church and makes it holy. We say we are ready to give up everything if the Lord requires it and perhaps we would. A persecuted Christian has actually done this.

The third letter is to the church in Pergamum. "I know where you live - a place where Satan sits enthroned." They did not deny their faith even in the days of Antipas, who was burned to death for refusing to offer a sacrifice to a Roman god. Antipas said, "86 years I served him and he never did me any harm." The church has some people who hold to the teaching of Balaam and some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which God hates. The word Pergamum means married. Some churches are married to the state, in ancient times the Catholic church with its syncretism of Roman pagan religion and Christianity, in our lifetime the Church of England with its support of gay rights and the interfaith movement. The Church of England in Newcastle City Centre is built underneath the council offices and very much under the influence of government policies. Perhaps the church in Pergamum was influenced by the presence of Satan's throne. I asked the vicar of the church in Newcastle why he had preached a sermon on the subject of 'Jesus belongs to all religions, not just ours.' He said it was New Year 2000 and the bishop wouldn't let him preach a sermon celebrating 2000 years since Jesus as he thought it was unfair to other religions. The bishop had accepted an intellectual sermon that included the role of Jesus in other religions.

The fourth letter is to the church in Thyatira. This is often taken to be the Catholic church in the middle ages when it was at its most murderous. My problem with this is that, while the letter says much about Jezebel, it says very little about Jezebel's role as a murderer (the people that she killed so that the king could have Naboth's vineyard.) Having said nothing about the Jezebel in the original church of Thyatira having murdered anybody, it takes a huge amount of imagination to connect this letter to the murderous medieval church. To me it's much more like the Catholic church as it is today. The letter begins by commending the church for its good works. "I know your record and what you are doing, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your recent works are more numerous and greater than your first ones." I listen to the news on Vatican Radio. No one can deny the huge amount of work the Catholic church does in a suffering world and the huge generosity that it shows. The Catholic church can go anywhere, to any part of Africa, to any tribe. Then, in the letter, there is the condemnation of Jezebel and her idolatory. How do I understand idolatory in the Catholic church? My Catholic friends would insist that, of course, they don't worship their statues or their crosses and that they ask saints in Heaven, including Mary, to pray for them. It isn't as bad as it looks. But even if you believe that, the Catholic church has become established in parts of the world where the local religion is a mixture of ancestral spiritism and genuine worship of statues that are genuine idols. The Catholic religion becomes part of this culture. The Catholic saints are simply added to the pantheon of local Gods. The crosses and statues are added to the things that are already worshipped. Worse still, the Catholic Church does nothing to challenge this. I have no idea whether Mother Theresa ever actually said the words she is quoted as saying in a film, that she doesn't prosletyse because God only wants you to be a good Muslim or a good Hindu. If she did, this is very close to what most modern Catholics actually believe. Pope Francis preached a sermon on the church being like a river and some of the sheep want to go deeper than others. Jesus loves everyone. Jesus died for people who don't believe in him. We are all his sheep. It is this extreme kind of interfaith universalism, a general feeling among modern Catholics that all religions lead to salvation because, after all, so few people go to Hell, that stops the Catholic church being an effective (prosletysing) missionary church. This is also one reason why the Catholic Church can go anywhere to do its charitable work - it can be trusted not to ask too many questions about the local religion. I am talking about modern Catholics. I make a distinction between very traditional Catholics who have an absolutist belief that the only way to receive salvation is by being confirmed by and receiving communion from an ordained Catholic priest and those who are influenced by the teachings of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. This council opened up the church to other religions completely and said that 'all men of good will shall be saved.' God is angry with Jezebel, will cast her on a bed of suffering and will strike her children dead. Nevertheless, there are some good people in the church of Thyatira, in the same way that there are some real born again Christians in today's Catholic church. "But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the depths of Satan - I tell you that I do not lay any other burden: only hold fast to what you have until I come."