First Love Series

Next he uses the word toil, or labor, kopos, and that doesn’t only mean physical effort; it also implies hardships, burdens or struggles. It could be the church as a whole which had suffered - perhaps their building had been torched, or they were struggling to find funds to pay the rent, or they’d lost important members. Or maybe individuals had been ill, or gotten fired, or been imprisoned falsely, or lost a child. Bad things had happened and yet they were determined to carry on, even if it meant more work. They were willing to do whatever it took.

Third, they were committed for the long haul. Jesus commended them for their patience. No doubt there had already been some persecution, the routine hardships and insults that a despised minority can be expected to have to swallow, but they had endured.

Finally, they had stayed pure. They were a disciplined church. They insisted on sound Biblical preaching, rejecting false teachers. We don’t know exactly what kind of teaching it had been; maybe they were questioning the divinity of Christ, teaching that Jesus hadn’t been raised from the dead, that they had to follow the Jewish dietary laws or that it was all right to worship the emperor or consult the stars. Most scholars believe that the Nicolaitans were a group who believed that freedom in Christ meant that they could sin without fear of any consequence. But whoever they were, the Ephesians were having none of them. So you see, the Ephesians hadn’t let either their moral or theological standards lapse. And you know what? I think that in many ways we can recognize ourselves in this description. Maybe even pat ourselves on the back - just a bit - for getting so many things right. But wait. There’s more. There’s bad news, as well.

In spite of all these positive qualities, something was seriously wrong with this congregation. Jesus said, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

What is it that Jesus is referring to? Is Jesus criticizing them for no longer enjoying the kind of breathless rapture that we call “falling in love?” I don’t think so. “Love” here does not refer to the feeling, but to the object of the feeling. That is, he is saying "you have forgotten the one you used to put first." Now, scholars are divided over whether he’s talking about love for him, or love for one another. The evidence is mixed. My opinion is that they’d fallen out of love with`Jesus. Because as important as loving one another is, if love for Jesus doesn’t come first, our love for people will get tangled and confused and result, often, in failure and disappointment.

So I believe that Jesus is telling the members of the church at Ephesus that they had taken their attention off of God and focused it, instead, on the church. Their first love had been Jesus himself, but`they had replaced him with a less demanding lover, one that only asked for their time or their money but made no claim on their hearts. It’s a whole lot easier, isn’t it, to give time or money than your heart.