Apostles Church

Thyatira: relatively insignificant town during the time of this writing, but would later grow to prosperity and significance. It was a commercial town. There were a large number of Trade guilds in the city. These guilds were gatherings of people in the same field who organized to maintain standards and enjoy community together. Inscriptions mention shoemakers, makers and sellers of dyed cloth and bronze smiths). Each craftsman was part of a guild, nearly everyone participated in them. They were the centers of social and civic life as well as the center of commerce. The religious life of the city was also influenced by the guilds. Each guild had a patron god or goddess and most meetings were religious in nature; included a feast to that god or goddess that would involve illicit sexual behavior. There was tremendous pressure to belong to a guild and its participate in its idolatrous and immoral gatherings. Not to do so would threaten your standing with the business community. This is the context the Gospel entered into and forged the Church. It may have been that Lydia brought the Gospel to Thyatira. She was a seller of purple cloths, possibly part of one of these guilds. She heard the Gospel in Acts 16, believed, was baptized and became deeply involved with the church. She may have gone back to Thyatira and started the fellowship there. How did churches get started? People who embraced Christ, told their friends and family the Gospel and begin meeting to pray and worship and read the Scriptures and remember Christ through bread and wine. And as this Church has grown, it has some great things about it and some real struggles. So, Jesus addresses them.

Commendation: When there is strong warning there is also great encouragement. Jesus commends them on all that they are doing in their church and city. Their works are laid out: your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.  Love - listed first. Most important virtue. Love for God and love for others. the very thing that the Church at Ephesus lacked this church possessed. They truly loved God and others. Faith - confidence in the story of Jesus. They did not buy into the counterfeit story of the Empire. To them, Caesar was not Lord; Jesus was. Jesus had their love and loyalty. They believed he was the hope of the world. It was the source of their patient endurance. This faith made them faithful. They were ready to testify as Jesus' witnesses. They believed this story in their bones so much so that they were willing to suffer if needed for Jesus. Service - charitable service and ministry to others not out of submission but out of self-less sacrificial love. This was not diminishing in the least. They were growing in all these things. Loved God more than when they began. They believed this Gospel more than they had ever believed it. They were enduring with the greater patient hope than ever before. They were serving in greater ways, demonstrating greater acts of sacrificial love and service. They never hit the cruise control; never backed off in their devotion.

Correction: Jezebel is a code name for this woman who was teaching error and leading some of the people into a life of compromise with the culture. Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab and she led Israel into Baal worship and the immortality that was associated with it (read about her beginning in 1 Kings 16). Jezebel is a codename. This woman in the church was a false prophet who was claiming to teach messages from God but these messages led the people into idolatry and immorality.
This issue is centered in the trade guilds. For someone in Thyatira to succeed in their career or their craft, they needed to be in a trade guild. It was virtually necessary to be connected to the trade guilds if you wanted to maintain your business and make a living. But to stay connected to these guilds you had to attend the guild's feast. Each guild was dedicated to a god or goddess in the pagan pantheon and each god or goddess was honored at these feasts. Meat would be sacrificed to the deity and then eaten in celebration of that deity. Often acts of immorality and sensuality would be part of that feast degenerating into some level of debauchery so that sexual immorality was a common occurrence at these feasts. If a Christian refused to participate in this kind of activity, they would be rejected by the guilds and suffer job loss or economic repercussions. The pressure that they faced was not one of losing their life at the hands of the empire, but suffering economically and socially. The question was "do we follow Jesus or do we make money? Do we follow Jesus or succeed in our careers."

The situation was that this woman who is called Jezebel was teaching the people that there was nothing wrong with participating in those feasts. There is an emerging influence of dualism upon the Church during this time where there is a sharp dichotomy between the physical and spiritual or the secular and the sacred. In other words, the guilds and their practices are about business, not spirituality. That has to do with your secular life, not your spiritual life. The woman called Jezebel is teaching that what you do with your business life does not impact your spiritual life. Those things are separate. Your faith does not impact your experience of the public arena. The guild feasts are simply a part of living in this city, it is merely civil and business not spiritual. It's part of the city's ethos and part of the city's story. To live in this city is to participate in that kind of activity.

The first temptation that the Church of Thyatira must overcome: compartmentalization regarding your faith. To divorce your faith from the public arena so that your faith has nothing to do with your city, social, political or economic life. To say that there is a sharp division between my faith and my public life; between my faith and my career. When a politician says, "I am religious but I don't let my faith effect my political agenda,"  that is a sharp demarcation between the secular and sacred. That demarcation runs through the hearts of many people. There is my career, or my dating life, or my entertainment choices, and then there is my spirituality. Illustrations: You wrestle with these kinds of decisions everyday. You are a Christ follower, but to entertain potential clients you are expected to take them to a strip club. To excel in your company you are expected to do some questionable things that Jesus would not endorse; or to climb the ladder you have to sacrifice your commitment to family, corporate worship and community. You're a Christ follower and an artists, actor, model, musician...and there may be expectations or opportunities are put before you that are morally questionable in the light of the way of Jesus. What does Jesus have to do with my social life; my dating life; my entertainment choices, my career - answer, He wants everything to do with it. He does not draw a line between the sacred and secular. All of life is sacred, a gift from God, and lived out before him and for him. Illus: paying airfare for Judson @ age 2.  Jesus' Kingdom has no borders in our lives. It covers all of our life. He wants to lead us in every area of our existence so that whether we eat, drink, play, work, recreate or relate, we do it all for his glory and pleasure. Just like following Jesus in Thyatira sometimes hindered one's career and economic advances, it could be that for some here, not all, but for some following Jesus in your field means you voluntarily hinder your advancement. Just as it costs many in Thyatira, it may cost some of us.

Warning: She is leading Jesus' people into spiritual adultery (v.22). Jesus is using the language of the Hebrew prophets who spoke of Israel's sin collectively as adultery against God. The prophets spoke in blatant terms about Israel's sin of worshiping other gods and giving themselves to immoral practices. Jeremiah and Ezekiel - they played the whore; they played the part of an unfaithful wife, having pledged themselves to God in loyal love, they gave themselves to another. She is leading Jesus' people away from his good purposes for their lives; she is leading them away from the life that God intends for them and as a result away from fullness of life. She is an instrument that is being used to destroy the life that God envisions for His people the purposes to which he has called them. So, Jesus threatens to destroy her life and all those who wholeheartedly follow her ways. They are a threat to the life He has for his people and  a threat to the life of the Church and its mission to be a counter kingdom that lives out a radically different ethic of faith, hope and love. They are a threat to the Church's calling to be a community that connects people to Jesus and his plan for the world. They are such a threat that Jesus says he will throw them into great tribulation that could result in death if they do not re-orient themselves to the truth. Jesus has been so patient with the people in this movement, with her and those who hold to her teachings; He has patiently waited for them to turn from this compartmentalized kind of life that professes Christ as Lord and yet continues in idolatry and sexual immorality, not giving Christ lordship over their public lives and sexuality. But his patience runs out. He is patient, but he is not a pushover. So he gives a very strong warning with language that is clear. If you do not turn from this trajectory in your life, you will bear the weight of its consequence. Listen Church. This is a message for us who have aligned ourselves with God and His Son Jesus. Jesus will not tolerate our idolatry and our immorality. He is patient with us; he knows we are weak and that we stumble and fall and get tripped up. He has compassion on us for that. He loves us just like we are, but he will not let us stay where we are. He calls us to continual repentance, to continually reorient our lives to him. And, if we ignore that calling, if we test his patient love and harden our hearts to his compassionate pleas for us to put an end to our duplicity and fully embrace the life he has for us, he will bring correction to our lives. He loves us too much to let us continue in our rebellion and he loves his name and mission and church too much to let those who outwardly belong to it weaken its distinctiveness by looking just like the world it is trying to bring renewal to.

Appeal. Jesus says, if you have ears to hear this, hear it. If you are a follower of Jesus and you have compartmentalized your faith, assigning Jesus a place in your life instead of Lordship over all your life, and have not yielded to his authority when it comes to money, drink, sex, and your career then listen to his warning. He is patient with you. He continues to woo you and patiently wait on you to come to him and bring all of your life under his gracious reign. His intentions for you are good and life giving. He will not let you continue in a rebellion that robs you of fullness of life and robs the Church of its distinctiveness in the culture. His word to you is repent; reorient your life to Him and his kingdom. Tell him, Jesus, I will seek to honor you in my public life; in my eating, drinking, my spending, my sexuality, my career, and my relationships. I will listen to your word and walk in your ways for your glory, my own good and for the reputation of your church in our city.

The 2nd temptation they must overcome is the temptation of unholy tolerance. The Church in Thyatira is losing its distinctiveness because people within the Church are believing and acting just like people outside the Church, and Jesus says, you must not tolerate that kind of accommodation that deprives the community of its distinctiveness and mission. So, the community must speak to the moral fabric of the community that we might be a faithful people who carry out our mission to our city. Community without accountability is counterfeit community.

Jesus ends the letter with a word of encouragement to those who are not giving in to this false teaching. The point of Jesus words: Jesus is going to rule this world visibly and powerfully and all who love him and trust him and follow him faithfully to end will share in that. We will be vindicated and enjoy the glory of his rule and reign in the new heavens and new earth. There is great blessing promised to us here and now but also there and then. Jesus wants us to keep that promise, that hope before us that it might fuel our patience and endurance. No sacrifice will go unrewarded.