Revelation 2:18-29

October 27, 2019

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts at 16:30 in the audio file.

Or, The Burden of Reaching International Relevance

We don’t have a Jezebel in our church. No one should actually name their daughter Jezebel anyway, but even in a symbolic way, we don’t have any Jezebels. The church in Thyatira did. And like Ahab’s wife, this woman led at least some of those among God’s people into trusting gods who aren’t really gods and into sexual sin that wasn’t really satisfying. We don’t have any self-identified prophetesses among us, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to learn from this first-century message from Jesus.

Jesus’ words to the church in Thyatira (2:18-29) is similar to His words to the church in Pergamum (2:12-17). In both churches there was false teaching, in both cases the church was too easy on the false teachers. At least the Ephesians tested those who taught among them and exercised discretion (2:2), though, of course, the Ephesians had a lovelessness problem (2:4). But again, the Pergamumites and the Thyatirans seem to have similar issues.

What’s different is the reason why the false teaching took hold in each city. In Pergamum, the Christians were tempted to indulge themselves according to Balaamite and Nicolaitan teaching for civic reasons. Pergamum loved and lauded the Roman Emperor, and failing to acknowledge the idols could be taken for a type of treason. In Thyatira, though, failing to acknowledge the idols was bad for business.

Thyatira was mostly in the middle of nowhere, at least compared to the seaport cities. It didn’t have any geographical defenses, like being built on a high hill. It was more like an outpost, a “garrison town” (Osborne), one of the first places to be attacked, so one of the places most frequently rebuilt. Rebuilding is good for business. There is evidence of a variety of goods and services, and in particular, of different guilds, with inscriptions discovered for “woolworkers, linen-workers, tanners, potters, bakers, slave-dealers and bronze-smiths” (Mounce). You may remember “Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods” who believed Paul’s preaching when visiting Philippi (Acts 16:14). Each guild had a patron god, and that god required honor and provided social glue. In order to be in the union, you had to pay the dues.

Enter Jezebel. She claimed to speak for God, and her message from God was that it was more than just okay to pay the dues to economic idols, it was actually an expression to show how close one was to the true God. Some of those in the church embraced her message, because it is the kind of message that goes down easily. If it didn’t tickle the ears, it certainly padded the wallet.

Jesus was, and is, having none of it. One word that summarizes their problems: worldliness. They behaved like this world, and the things in the world, were important to have, even if it meant reinterpreting the truth for God’s sake. Jesus calls the Thyatirans to just conquer worldliness, and the Spirit calls us all to hear the message.

The All-Knowing One (verse 18)

A few things stand out in this identification of Jesus to the Thyatirans.

First, these words are of the Son of God, which is the only time this title is used for Jesus in the book of Revelation. It is also the only title given in the identifications in these messages to the churches; even the rest in verse 18 are descriptions. It may be that the Son of God emphasizes that there is only one, because the “guardian deity” of Thyatira was Apollo Tyrimnos, the son of Zeus (Mounce).

That Jesus has eyes like a flame of fire emphasizes His piercing vision (see 1:14, from Daniel 10:6), a fact which is stated explicitly in verse 23. His feet are like burnished bronze (see 1:15), and this seems to connect to the metallurgy in the city as well as a military image of brass slender and s[...]