Revelation 2:1-17

The next section of reading I had in Revelation was of the first 3 letters to the seven churches. These are the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamum. I picked up on a few themes that resonated with me and they are as follows:

The Lord loves pure doctrine. He praises Ephesus for theirs and rebukes Pergamum for their lack. This is because right doctrine leads to right conduct (orthodoxy begets orthopraxy). The Ephesians spotted false teaching and evil practices a mile away. They hated the deeds of the Nicolatians, followers of Nicolas who essentially taught that Christians have a license to sin. Christ hates their deeds too. The church in Pergamum, however, struggled with false teachings and even had some who followed the teaching of the Nicolatians.

The Lord does not love mechanical orthodoxy. This was the fault of the church in Ephesus. Despite their endurance, their intolerance for moral misconduct, and their watchful eye for erring teaching, the Ephesians had abandoned their love of Christ. This was such a serious error that the Lord threatened to remove the church! I often have to check myself and see if my devotion to discernment has exiled my love of Jesus. It is quite an easy thing to do for the church who is determined about being truly committed to the Bible.

Endurance is an essential part of the Christian life. At the end of each letter so far, Jesus expresses some wonderful truth about the fate of "the one who conquers" (vv. 7, 11, 17). They will "eat of the tree of life" (v. 7), they "will not be hurt by the second death" (v. 11), and they will get some "hidden manna" and a stone with a secret name on it that only they know. I think the first two things are pretty straightforward. Eating of the tree of life is representative of everlasting life, and escaping the second death is escaping God's wrath toward evil. I can't figure out what the hidden manna refers to, but I believe that the image of the white stone is reflective of a heightened level of intimacy with Christ. That sounds good to me! In addition, each church is praised for it's endurance and encouraged to continue. So endure! Whatever trial you might be facing, whether it be temptation or ridicule or the death of a close one, endure. It's most certainly worth it, and Christ smiles on you for it! He understands your hardship and is with you in it. Let that strengthen you.

The proper response to sin is repentance. In both cases when Jesus has something against the church (Ephesus and Pergamum), He commands them to repent. It's that simple, but don't get me wrong, simple does not mean easy. Realize where you've gone wrong. Apologize for it. Hate it. Move on. This is not some complicated process of needing to figure out what sort of repressed feelings are at work and how we need to get in touch with our inner self by meditating on the… NO! You're struggling with a sin? Repent. Love what God loves and hate what God hates. Have nothing to do with that sin anymore. Don't give it any pathways into your life. Don't put yourself in a position to be tempted by it. I can't count the number of times when I asked myself why I struggled so much with a particular sin. Then the question came up of what I was doing to actively combat it and… I had no answer. As John Piper says, "Make war!!"