To start this one, here's a little context on the community in Thyatira. It was a blue-collar manufacturing city. Lots of trades and trade associations. These associations were tied to the worship and temple practices of other religions. If you wanted a license for your business you would have to join one of these trade associations. That would have been difficult for these early Jesus followers.

Apparently there was a woman - or group of people - who knew the answer. Jesus refers to this woman or group of people as Jezebel. I'll get into the OT story of who Jezebel was and how she got the Israelites to worship both the LORD and Baal. Essentially - we think - these people were teaching that you could be a Jesus follower and also participate in these temple practices and the worship of other gods. Sort of like the Nicolatians. So, there was this idea of a spirit of compromise.

This tends to do 2 things to us. We compartmentalize our lives. We're one person when we're around religious people and someone else at home and someone else at work and so on. Jesus is the one with feet like burnished bronze - Jesus is at the center of our lives. It also leads us to simply make decisions based on what we want instead of what we value the most.

Jesus is the one with eyes that blaze like fire seeing through all of our compromises. He's constantly inviting us to make this world what God wants it to be - full of grace and truth and beauty and creativity and generosity.

Speaker: Aaron Vis

Scripture: Revelation 2:18-29

http://bible.com/events/48893274