Letter to the church in Thyatira
Rev. 2:18-29
In the opening pages of Revelation, our Lord introduces Himself as heaven’s holy warrior (1:12–20) who would prepare His people to overcome their enemies (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21) by exhorting them to hear what the Spirit has to say in the letters He writes to seven churches. Strikingly, though He writes each letter to a particular church, Christ insists that each be heard by all (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22), effectively making each one an “open letter” for all believers to read. What, then, does Christ want us to learn from His letter to the church at Thyatira?
To hear that lesson we have to examine key particulars of the letter that Christ wrote to the Christians there.
Most importantly, Christ’s message to the Christians at Thyatira is a warning that they are in grave spiritual danger. But how can this be? This church, unlike the one at Ephesus, has not lost its first love (2:4–5) but has grown in love and faith with service and endurance (2:19). However, with those virtues, the church has a big problem. And the problem was not coming from outside the church: . Instead, the danger is coming from within. The church is tolerating the presence of a false prophetess and her disciples (2:20). We understand better the threat posed by these wolves when we analyze the background of Thyatira.
For some people today tolerance is the only real virtue and intolerance the only vice. The message to Thyatira goes against the grain of modernity by setting limits to tolerance. The main criticism of the angel of Thyatira is that the church has tolerated something--and someone--that should not be tolerated (v. 20).
On the surface the Church at Thyatira was strong and flourishing. If a stranger went into it, he would be impressed with its abounding energy and its generous liberality and its apparent steadfastness. For all that, there was something essential missing. Here is a warning. A church which is crowded with people and which is a hive of energy may not necessarily a growing Church. It is possible for a Church to be crowded because its people come to be entertained instead of being instructed, and to be soothed instead of confronted with the fact of sin and the offer of salvation; it maybe a highly successful Christian club rather than a real Christian congregation.
.Beginning in Verse 18 of Chapter 2, the Lord addresses the angel of the church. Thyatira was located about 35 miles southeast of Pergamum. It was a very small city, but a busy commercial center. It was on a major road of the Roman Empire, and, because of this, many guilds or trade unions had settled in this city. Everyone who worked there was a member of one or more trades and had to be a member of one or more guilds. There were carpenters, dyers, sellers of goods, tent makers, etc.
It was difficult to make a living as a Christian in Thyatira without belonging to the guild or union. This is a factor which will bear upon the interpretation of this letter.
Sometimes the pressure of “fitting in” with the world is overwhelming, but we are to stand firm in our faith, trusting God to provide and to take care of us. We are also to stand firm on the truth of God’s Word and not tolerate those who disregard and distort it. As you study this letter to the church at Thyatira, be open to what God wants to teach you through the message to this church.
If the church of Pergamum is an example of the compromising church that is taking the first kiss toward sin, then the church of Thyatira is the church that has completely gone to bed with idolatry and is suffering the life-threatening side effects of immorality. The longest letter written by Jesus to the seven churches was necessary to correct what could very well be the most corrupt of all the churches.
How did the church start? The founding of the church at Thyatira is not mentioned in the Bible. However, as a note of interest, according to Acts 16:14, in the church at Philippi, which the Apostle Paul began, there was a woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, who came from Thyatira.
Our Lord's first words to this church indicate both judgment and approval. He says:
"These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first." (Revelation 2:18b-19 NIV)
Notice that He uses, for the first and only time in the book of Revelation, the title the "Son of God." As the Son of God He has "eyes like blazing fire," eyes that can pierce the facades, the disguises, the postures and pretensions of His people and get right to the heart of what they are doing. He has feet "like burnished bronze" which can trample sin under foot and severely punish that which is wrong.. Both are needed in the church at Thyatira. It is the most corrupt of the seven churches that are presented here.
But there were some good things going on in this church. Our Lord tells us what they are. "I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and your perseverance." Those are related. Love leads to service; faith leads to perseverance. If you love God, you will serve his people. You cannot help it. It is the sign that you love that you are willing to serve. And if you have faith you will persevere; you will understand that God is in control and things will work out according to His purpose. You keep at your work; you do not quit.
So here was a church that had many people who loved God and served His people. They had faith in His word, and they persevered. They helped many, and they kept it up. As others then got involved, the church grew. So the deeds, or the works, of the church were far more when this letter was written than when it first began. That means they were growing in their faith, not just resting in something God did for them in the past
That is the way a church grows. If you and I had been there at Thyatira, we would have been greatly impressed by this church. It was a busy, bustling, active church with some wonderful people in it who obviously manifested love and faith, concern and care for others. It must have seemed a very attractive church. But now the blazing eyes and the burning feet go into action. We begin to learn deeper facts about the church. Our Lord says:
"Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead." (Revelation 20-23a NIV)
Evidently there was in the church at Thyatira a woman who was a very dominant leader. Jesus names her "Jezebel." That was not her name, of course, but our Lord always names people according to their character. Here he chooses the name of the most evil woman in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament Jezebel was the daughter of the king of Sidon, a town in Lebanon . She was the wife of King Ahab of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and she is particularly noted for having made the worship of the god Baal popular in Israel – 1 Kings 16:31-32. Baal was a fertility god, and his worship involved immoral and licentious practices. There were temple prostitutes, both male and female, associated with the worship of Baal. It was Jezebel who spread that degraded worship widely among the ten tribes of Israel until it became one of the popular religions of the day. She herself supported over 800 prophets of Baal, who ate at her table -1 Kings 18:19. She was the one who tried to kill Elijah after his famous encounter with 450 of the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel when fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice.- 1Kings 19:1-3. That man of God had faced with great courage 450 false prophets, but when Jezebel got after him he ran for his life. She was also the one who murdered her neighbor Naboth because her husband wanted his vineyard -1 Kings 21:11-14.. She was a ruthless, immoral, seducer of the people, and that is why Jesus selects her name for this dominant woman at Thyatira.
This Jezebel in Thyatira called herself a "prophetess." There is nothing wrong with that in itself if she was a genuine prophetess but what was wrong was her teaching. And because of her teaching she was a false prophet. Our Lord points out what her teaching was. She taught that it was all right for Christians to indulge in sexual immorality and in idolatry.
Here is the link with the trade unions or guilds of Thyatira. In order to work in Thyatra, Christians had to join a union, or guild, the members were pagans for the most part. The meetings of the guilds were devoted to licentious debaucheries which were connected with the worship of erotic idols of the Greek world. Let me quote from William Barclay. He says,
These guilds met frequently, and they met for a common meal. Such a meal was, at least in part, a religious ceremony. They would probably meet in a heathen temple, and they would certainly begin with a libation to the gods, and the meal itself would largely consist of meat offered to idols.
This was the problem these Thyatiran Christians faced. In order to make a living they had to belong to a union, but to attend the union was to become involved, or pressured to become involved, with the worship of idols and with licentious and lascivious drunken revelry. So they had to make a choice. It was difficult to live in Thyatira for this very reason. But apparently Jezebel had begun to teach that it was all right for them to go along with the requirements of the guild, that they needed to submit to the pressures of the world around in order to make a living, and that God would understand and overlook this. Her philosophy was what you often hear today: "Business is business." If business practices collide with your Christian principles, then your principles have to go -- because you have to make a living.
Notice that in the letters to the church at Pergamum, and to the church at Thyatira, the Lord links sexual immorality with idolatry. We may find that strange, but actually one inevitably leads to the other. The reason is this: Fornication and adultery are both clear-cut violations of specific and explicit statements in the Word of God. Anyone who reads the Bible can see very clearly that God forbids these activities. It is wrong for believers to indulge in sexual immorality of any sort. When one does, he or she has deliberately violated the authority of God, therefore, in practice, God is no longer their God.
The most subtle challenges to our faith does not usually originate in public amphitheaters but in the places where we earn the money we need to live. What the trades need, is not our soul but our skills; not our worship but our hard work. When we learn this vital alignment of values, we will do better in our work and have fewer ulcers too. Compromise, whether of the dramatic, amphitheater type or the low-grade office type, always make us lose our testimonies..
It is obvious that this church had tolerated sin. It had tolerated acts of immorality and certain involvement with idols, as verse 20 indicates it. And not only had it tolerated, but it had allowed the woman who was teaching that to have reached a point of prominence where she was articulating it and leading Christians astray, as well as collecting around her some believers of her false doctrines. The Lord promises that He’s going to judge, and He’s going to judge that church severely, sparing only those, according to verse 24, who do not hold to this teaching.
Here is the similarity between Jezebel, queen of Ahab, and Jezebel prophetess of Thyatira: both led the people of God in accommodating pagan influences resulting in wrong doctrinal practices and sexual immorality.
Sadly, the church in Thyatira had (if you can believe this!) too much love. (That is actually an incorrect statement, and I'll clarify what I mean in a moment!) Ephesus was strong in doctrine but lacked love. Thyatira was strong in love but weak in doctrine. They weren’t willing to disagree with anyone about doctrinal heresies.
It’s common for churches to be polarized in one of these two extremes. Either they will have full heads and empty hearts, or full hearts and empty minds. Either polarization is deadly. God demands both love and sound doctrine (see 1 Timothy 1:5).
Table salt is a compound, a mixture of two elements: sodium and chloride. Both of these elements are poisonous by themselves. Sodium, an alkali metal, can be explosive if added to water, and chlorine is by itself a highly poisonous gas. If you ingest either sodium or chloride alone, you will die. But if you put them together properly, they become sodium chloride: common table salt.
So too, doctrine and love must be found together. One without the other can lead to a dangerous imbalance. But combined they provide flavor and health to the body of Christ.
But let’s start with the first thought that comes to our mind as we read the letter. Here is a church that has been infiltrated by wrong doctrines and sin, a church that has done nothing about it.
I would like to us to go back to a very basic understanding that is the Lord wants His church holy. He wants His church in every sense intolerant to sin. This goes all the way back to the first instruction we have about the church. The first instruction is in Matthew chapter 18.
Here in chapter 18, for the first time we have instruction regarding church discipline. And the very first instruction ever given specifically to the church is that if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. If he listens to you, you’ve won your brother. If he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a pagan and a tax gatherer.
In other words, the very first instruction ever given to the church is confrontational with sin. And that instruction is given to individuals in the church, not to some elite core of people of the church. But if your brother sins you go and you reprove him. The Lord wants His church to be pure, and therefore the first instruction He gave had to do with the purity of the church. He wants it to be intolerant of sin.
In Acts 15 when the council met in Jerusalem, the church had spread out of Jerusalem and had some Gentiles as believers,. . And there was concern about all these Gentiles coming to Christ And so the council at Jerusalem penned a letter to be sent to all of these other Christians and all of these other churches telling them how they were to live their lives so that they could be most effective in their witness. And in verse 29 of Acts 15 we find the last little paragraph in the council’s decision, and it says this, “You are to abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual sin. If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.”
The first instruction that comes from the council of Jerusalem to the church that is beginning to grow is to stay away from idol activity, to stay away from sexual sin and you are to stay away from engaging yourself in eating that which is offered to idols.
Now with that as a background, it isn’t difficult to understand that the church at Thyatira was in direct conflict with the will of the Lord of the church. This church was tolerating sin in the very two forms that it was forbidden. It was tolerating, if you can imagine this, spiritual fornication, spiritual adultery, espousing to another deity. And it was tolerating physical adultery, sexual sin. The kind of thing the Lord does not want in His church was going on at Thyatira and it was not being dealt with..
You will notice the depth of the corruption is indicated in verse 24 by the phrase ‘the deep things of Satan.’ It shows how the plunge had reached the depths. The church at Smyrna was being assaulted by a synagogue of Satan. But it was coming from the outside against them. Pergamos was being confronted by the throne of Satan, but this was also an outside threat. But Thyatira had plummeted into the deep things of Satan. And this was not something that was attacking them from the outside, this was behavior that was going on the inside.
In 1 Tim. 4:1 we find Paul stating that Satanic doctrines can be preached in the church therefore be careful. And we’re going to see how these things co-existed and how the Lord dealt with them in the church at Thyatira.
The punishment that our Lord assesses against this teaching reflects the sickness that idolatry and immorality always bring.
Only what was beginning to happen in Pergamos had come to full bloom in Thyatira. If the church married to the world was Pergamos, in Thyatira they were celebrating wedding anniversaries. If compromise had begun in Pergamos, it had taken over in Thyatira. And this letter shows the depth of sin that compromise ultimately leads to – full-scale idolatry, full-scale immorality, and worst of all, tolerance of both.
There are three parties involved:
First, there is Jezebel herself. Jesus says: "I will cast her on a bed of suffering." There is a note of irony or sarcasm there. He is saying, in effect, "She likes beds, so I will give her one, but it will prove to be a bed of agonizing pain and hurt." It would constitute her only chance to realize what was happening to her, and lead her to change.
Then there is another group: "I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely [literally, "I will give them great affliction"] unless they repent of her ways." Those who commit adultery with her are those who practice, as she did, immorality and the consequent idolatry.
There was still a third group. The Lord says, "I will strike her children with death." Children represent those who not only practice immorality but who teach it as well, as Jezebel was doing. The "death," I think, refers to spiritual death, i.e., what is called in the letter to the church at Pergamum "the second death," the terrible destruction of the lake of fire described in Chapters 20 and 21 of this book. It is a commitment to evil that makes repentance difficult.
But notice the good news here: "unless they repent of her ways." Our Lord always gives an opportunity for repentance. I have often thought that natural disasters -- earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc. -- are opportunities being given men to think again, to stop and look at what we are doing, and to change our ways. It is opportunity to repent, a slap in the face that says, wake up! "But," Jesus says, "she was unwilling." And so the judgment must come. The impact of that judgment is given in verse 23:
"Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds." (Revelation 2:23b NIV)
The result of judgment and discipline within the church is that the church is purified, strengthened, and helped. People begin to take note of evil tendencies and become careful not to drift into the pattern of society around. They are willing to stand against the tide or swim against the current. That is what needed to happen in Thyatira.
Our Lord says that, when you see Him acting in judgment, you realize that your choices determine our destiny , and that each one will be held responsible for his/her choices. No one else can be blamed but we ourselves.
"Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): Only hold on to what you have until I come." (Revelation 2:24-25 NIV)
That is a wonderfully sensitive and thoughtful word. Here, for the first time in these letters, our Lord lays special stress on His coming. Notice also the phrase "the deep things of Satan." That indicates that when a church drifts in these areas of low moral standards and tolerates wrong doctrines it almost invariably involves the rise of mystic rites and rituals. People love to feel they are being let into special, secret things.
You find these mystic cults arising in many of the movements of our day. The New Age Movement, for instance, intrigues people with revelations of powerful spirit beings who can impart information that ordinary people do not have. What was mentioned in this passage may have been the early signs of Gnosticism .." In Paul's letter to the Corinthians he speaks of the "deep things of God," (1 Corinthians 2:10). Whenever God has something good, Satan imitates it. These dark and hidden matters are Satan's imitation of the wonderfully deep truths in the Word of God. Now to those who refuse these secret teachings , Jesus says, "Hold fast what you have." Do not let it go. Do not accept these degrading moral standards. It may be difficult to live for Christ in a worldly church, but hang on to your moral standards at least. Do not go along with sexual immorality. “ Hold on," Jesus says, "until I come." To such who overcome by holding fast till he comes, he adds another word in Verse 26:
"To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations --
'He will rule them with an iron scepter;
he will dash them to pieces like pottery' --
just as I have received authority from my Father. (Revelation 2:26-27 NIV)
That quotation from Psalm 2 is a reference to the rule of Christ in the earthly kingdom that we call "The Millennium." It is a promise of reigning with Christ, not in the new heavens and the new earth, but in a period marked by the type of rule found in this quotation: Jesus says, "He will rule them with an iron scepter." That means with some degree of stern judgment. "He will dash them to pieces like potter's vessels" (Psalms 2:9 KJV), i.e., the combines of evil will be broken up in that day.
It is referring, therefore, not to the new heavens and the new earth (because nothing evil ever enters there), but to the millennial kingdom, the earthly kingdom over which the saints will share a reign with Christ. We need to understand that the Millennium is a time when righteousness reigns, i.e., it rules over the earth, it judges among people because sin is present and death as well. But the new heavens and the new earth reflect a condition where righteousness dwells. Nothing shall enter there except that which is righteous and pure and good. Now our Lord becomes even more specific.
"I will also give him the morning star." (Revelation 2:28 NIV)
That is a beautiful symbol. I do not know how many of you have ever seen the morning star, but you have to get up while it is still dark to do so. In the book of Malachi, the closing book of the Old Testament, there is a great prediction by the prophet that the "Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in his wings" (Malachi 4:2 KJV), i.e., the Lord Jesus will return in power and great glory. He will be like the sun appearing in the darkness of this world's night. But before the sun rises, the morning star appears. In Revelation 22:16, Jesus says of himself: "I am the bright and morning star." He will appear for his own, for those belonging to him, who are true Christians, who have been held and kept by the Spirit of God from the evils of the society around. "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." (Revelation 2:29 NIV)
Not just to this church, but to all the churches. These promises and warnings are needed in our individual lives, no matter what our local church may be like. Ephesus tells us, "Do not let your love for Jesus grow cold," (Revelation 2:1-7). Smyrna says, "Do not fear the persecution of the world," ( Revelation 2:8-11). Pergamum says, "Trust the Word of God to keep you strong and faithful," (Revelation 2:12-17). And Thyatira tells us, "Avoid both sexual and spiritual adultery. Keep your moral standards clear." These are tremendously practical letters for the age in which we live. We need to heed them today as much as they did in the 1st century.
In fairness to the Thyatiran church, they were doing a lot of things right - as the letter openly acknowledges. Jesus begins by congratulating the group for their good deeds, their love, faith, service and perseverance – and for the obvious growth in their dedication.
But the underlying issue here was neither sexual immorality nor the eating of food sacrificed to idols, as much as both needed addressing. The fundamental issue was that the community of faith in Thyatira were being led down a road of compromise because of their attitude of tolerance towards those who were having wrong doctrines and leading others to sin.
The word used for 'tolerate' in verse 20 means to permit, to allow, to not hinder. In other words, it is not restricted to those who joined in with the Jezebel rebellion, but also includes all those who stood by and watched it happen – unwilling or too afraid to say anything.
This is where the letter shouts so very loudly to our church culture today: tolerance of worldly values, pagan idolatry and false doctrine within the Church, even if we ourselves do not participate, is not an option for Christians. We cannot serve two masters – if we try, we will end up denying the Lord Jesus.
And so, tolerance has led to complacency – to the point where the Lordship of Jesus is downplayed (even denied), His righteous ways are made light of, and His call to holiness is ignored, in case we offend others If believers do not live in ways that challenge and change the culture around us, that culture will end up changing us..
Learning to live distinctive Christian lives in the midst of a secular/pagan culture is difficult. But is it alright to 'tolerate' in order to build bridges with our neighbours for the sake of the Gospel? How do we grow a Church culture that is not soft on sin, whilst avoiding both legalism (on the one side) and liberal compromise (on the other)?
There are many questions here and no easy answers – this is a path that can only be walked with the help of the Holy Spirit. But it is important to note that the process starts not in word or deed, but in the heart.
It is in the heart that the choice is made whether or not to stand against deception or wrong doctrines within the Lord's Body. It is in the heart that tiny decisions are taken to stay silent when brothers and sisters go astray, in case they are offended by our speaking out. It is in the heart that tolerance blurs into compromise – before any words have been uttered or actions [not] taken. No human sees these small, imperceptible choices – but God does.
The time is coming when the Lord will sift and test us all, as he undoubtedly did the Thyatirans. Those who do not pass the test will end up suffering – not because God is a sadist, but because he knows we have hard hearts that often need to be broken before they can be changed.
Ideally, this judgment will produce a fruit of repentance and a return to obedience and righteousness. This may or may not happen – but what is certain is that it will become increasingly difficult to exist as a Christian with one foot in the world and the other in the Kingdom. It is either/or, not both/and! What will it take for us to choose the Lord?
Those who do, who hold on faithfully to that which they have been given whatever the cost - the overcomers - will participate with the Lord Jesus in His ultimate rule and reign at the end of time.
So here’s my last word on the subject. Before Jesus warns the church at Thyatira about its Jezebel, He reminds them of who they are. He reminds them that their church, their community, rests on the firm foundation of the love, faith, service, and patient endurance that they have been practicing. I like to think of them as the four columns of Thyatira. And I think what He was saying is that if those four columns remain strong, we'll recognize those moments when we need to stand up, or sit down, for what Jesus Christ has bequeathed us. And we’ll have the strength to “hold fast” to what we have until Jesus comes, and our last works will indeed be greater than our first works. May God continue to give this until the rising of the morning star.
