A letter to the church at Thyatira

We next visited Thyatira, and Dr. John Yeatts' devotional is shared with you here.

The ruins in Thyatira have not been as excavated (in part because the town is built on top of it), but we visited what remained.

Thyatira was known for the purple dye that could be made from the snails. I'm not sure if this is a purple snail, but there were a lot of them at the site!

The Witnessing Church IV: The Consequence of Compromise

Revelation 2:18-29

My father liked to tell me how hard it was to get a job during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  He was a machinist, and there were several applicants for every factory job.  He found employment in a small factory, but even then his situation was not secure.  There were always unemployed persons waiting to take his job.  Since it was not a union shop, if he did not perform, he would be fired, and someone else would take his place.

Converted to Christ in his late twenties, my father came to believe that war was against the teachings of Christ.  As a new Christian, he was particularly zealous for his new beliefs.  As World War II approached, my father took a verbal stand against war, which made him unpopular with the other workers and with his boss. One day the situation came to a climax when he was presented with the blueprint to make a piece on his machine that he knew would be part of a warhead. Should he compromise and do the job? After all, he was not pulling the trigger. Because of his faith and his commitment to follow Christ the suffering Lamb, he refused to run the job, even though he knew that meant he might lose the employment that was so important to him.  His refusal angered his fellow workers and the factory management, who were deeply committed to the popular war effort. For a few days my parents were not sure whether or not he would be fired. Finally, the management decided, because the labor supply was so short during the war, he could remain on the job.  Yet for the duration of the war, he received no increase in salary when others in the factory benefited from raises.

When the choice is between making a living and being a faithful witness to Christ, the message of Revelation is that we choose to be a faithful witness. For my father’s refusal to compromise, he suffered only ridicule and modest financial loss. Many persons have risked their lives by following Christ.  Perhaps you disagree with the stand that my father took; yet, is there anything about your faith for which you would be willing to die? 

My father’s situation is remarkably similar to the situation in Thyatira.  In contrast to Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamum, Thyatira was a rather unimportant city.  Ironically, John wrote the longest letter to the most insignificant city.  Thyatira was not a religious or political center.  There was no temple to the Roman emperor there.  Indeed, the city had few temples.  One local hero-god named Tyrimnos became identified with the Greek god Apollo.  A woman named Sambathe told fortunes at her shrine Thyatira.  No real threat of religious persecution or political oppression existed for Christians in this city. 

The difficulty for the Christians at Thyatira was connected to the fact that the city was a center of trade.  Archeological inscriptions mention guilds of workers in wool, linen, leather, pottery, bronze, and baked goods.  Lydia, who was mentioned in Acts as a seller of purple, may have worked for the purple cloth factory in Thyatira (Acts 16:14).  In any case, as a result of the commercial nature of the city, trade unions sprang up there.  It was difficult to get a job if a person was not a member of one of these unions.  Yet the unions held banquets in honor of pagan idols, and served meat dedicated to these gods.  Furthermore, the banquets commonly ended in  orgies of immorality and drunkenness.  The problem in Thyatira was whether or not to participate in these meals.  Could a faithful witness for Christ be a member of a union that required him to attend banquets in honor some idol, eat meat dedicated to that god, and sanction drunkenness and immorality?  Therefore, the Christians at Thyatira were placed in a situation similar to the one my father faced.  Should they witness against the unchristian practices of the unions, or compromise to save their jobs.  The temptation to compromise also confronts faithful witnesses today.

Christ has some advice for the Christians at Thyatira and for us today.  Here, Christ is called, “the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and feet like burnished bronze.”  The description of Christ’s feet may allude to the bronze industry in Thyatira.  More significantly, this picture of Christ as a strong and stern judge prepares for the stern message that he has for the Christians at Thyatira. 

He begins as usual with a word of praise: “your last works are greater than the first.”  They are improving in “love, faith, service, and patient endurance.”  The majority have kept their faithful witness in this evil environment.  They are not like the Ephesians who had lost their first love.  Yet their concern to love and serve has led to compromise.  Specifically, they tolerate Jezebel, who was probably a leader of the gnostic cult of the Nicolaitans mentioned in the letter to Pergamum.  The name was likely given to an unknown woman at Thyatira who practiced the sin of Jezebel.  Just as King Ahab’s wife led Israel to compromise with the idolatrous religions of their neighbors (1 Kings 16:31-34), so the Jezebel of Thyatira seduced Christians to compromise by participating in the idolatry and immorality of the trade union dinners.  So the sin of the Thyatiran Christians was that they tolerated this Jezebel; they compromised with evil. 

Christ says that some of the Christians at Thyatira were actually spiritual children of Jezebel, honoring the gods by participating in the trade union banquets and the sexual immorality that went along with them.  They had sold out their witness for these evil practices.  Christ’s word to them is: Repent.  Sexual language is used to describe the fate of Jezebel and her followers if they refuse to repent.  Compromising their faithfulness to God is called adultery.  If the seducer Jezebel does not repent she will be thrown, not on a bed of adultery, but on a sickbed.  Those who commit adultery with her through compromise with evil will be in great distress and even may even die.  The seriousness of their sin is characterized in the words, “the deep things of Satan.”  Jezebel and her followers thought they could compromise with the satanic world without damaging their Christian witness.  For this, they receive what they disserve.

On the other hand, Christ has two promises for those who conquer by continuing to bear witness to the end: authority over the nations to rule with an iron rod and the morning star.  Christ himself is the morning star, so the witness who conquers receives the authority of Christ as a reward.  And because these who are faithful have Christ, their witness defeats the powers of the evil nations to rule them with a rod of iron.  The verb “rule” again is literally “shepherd.” Christ will shepherd them with the iron rod.  With Christ in us, we have the ability to conquer the temptation to compromise and to defeat the evil that seduces us. 

In Dickens’s book, A Tale of Two Cities, two prisoners are in a cart headed for the guillotine, a man who is giving his life for a friend, and a small girl.  The girl addresses the other prisoner: “If I may ride with you, will you let me hold your hand?  I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage.”  When the cart reaches the spot of execution, the little girl looks up into the man’s face and says: “I think you were sent to me by heaven.”  Christ the morning star was sent to us to help to overcome the temptation to compromise with evil and to be Christ’s witnesses in the midst of a culture that would influence us to do things that damage that witness.

Sing: I Would Be True

 I would be true, for there are those who trust me; I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer; I would be brave, for there is much to dare.

 I would be friend of all—the foe, the friendless; I would be giving, and forget the gift;
I would be humble, for I know my weakness; I would look up, and laugh, and love, and lift.

I would be faithful through each passing moment; I would be constantly in touch with God;
I would be strong to follow where He leads me; I would have faith to keep the path Christ trod.

Howard A. Walter

Pray:  O Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and feet like burnished bronze, may our works of love, faithfulness, service, and patient endurance be greater than at first.  Help us to repent of our bent to compromise with the deep things of Satan and hold fast our faithful witness so that we will disserve to receive the authority to overcome evil through you, the morning star.  Amen.