THYATIRA: Conquering or Caving?
Douglas Jacoby, İzmir, 7 June 2025

To hear the message (29 minutes), based on Revelation 2:18-29, please click on the arrow.

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BACKGROUND

  • Trade guilds
    • On the Sardis-Pergamum highway, Thyatira was a major inland city in an ideal commercial location. The good things commerce brings enriched the city, an impression confirmed by the coins discovered there. More guilds were found here than in any other contemporary city in the province, including guilds of bakers, coppersmiths, dyers, fullers, leather-workers, linen-weavers, potters, shoemakers, slave traders, tailors, wool-workers.
    • Every guild owned property, made contracts and wielded influence in the city’s political, economic, social and religious life. Membership was compulsory for anyone pursuing a trade. Each provided specific benefits and took actions to protect its interests. Each also had a patron deity, and all proceedings and feasts commenced with homage to that god or goddess.
    • At guild banquets food offered to idols was served typically in temples, the feast followed by sexual entertainment. This posed a dilemma for the shopkeepers and craftsmen among the city’s Christian community, who risked loss of income for refusing to take part in such rituals, or to join the guilds in the first place.
    • Given the connection between guilds, idol feasts, and sexual sin, Christians whose commercial security was determined by participation in the guilds may have found it difficult to live out their faith and practice their craft. The issue of food sacrificed to idols also plagued Pergamum and Corinth (Rev 2:14; 1 Cor 8:10-11).
  • Idolatry: the cult of Rome and Augustus
    • This was strong by around 2 BC, making for a nice fit with local cult of Apollo Tyrimn[ae]os.
    • Widespread was the myth of Rome (conquest, violence, glory, peace and leisure) – entailing worship of Rome (city and empire) and her emperor. (When Rev was written, Vespasian seems to have been on the throne, although in our time the majority of NT scholars favor Domitian.)
    • Yet the Roman Empire was hardly eternal, omnipotent, or divine.
      • In addition to Revelation, other ancient texts predict the fall of Rome on account of her immoral and luxurious lifestyle, e.g. Aelius Aristides Oratio 26 [AD 155] and the Sibylline Oracles8:113-119 [AD 175]).
      • Edward Gibbon’s (1737-94) analysis of the factors leading to the fall of Rome is apropos:
        • Mounting love of show and luxury. (Affluence, conspicuous consumption.)
        • Widening gap between the very rich and the very poor.
        • Obsession with sex.
        • Freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality.
        • Increased desire to live off the state.

TEXT

18 “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 

  • Thyatira—the middle church of the seven in Rev 2-3—and recipient of the longest of the seven letters.
  • “Son of God” appears 46x in the NT, 1x in Rev. See Ps 2:7,12. Apollo [Tyrimnos] and the Roman emperor (identified as Apollo incarnate) were acclaimed as sons of Zeus. Yet it is not the emperor or the guardian deity of Thyatira, but the resurrected Christ, who is the true Son of God [Wm. Mounce].
  • Eyes, feet—see Dan 10:6. Context of judgment. A fearful image!
  • The Lord scrutinizes his people.
  • They are commended for their love, faith, service, endurance, and increased energy, yet—

20 “‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works. 

  • Jezebel
    • Phoenician wife of Ahab (9th century BC) who opposed the prophets of Yahweh.
    • Sexual permissiveness in the guise of spirituality, in the context of idol feasts.
  • God’s justice
    • “Searches minds [kidneys] and hearts”—Jer 17:10; 11:20; Ps 7:9; 139:1-2,23; 1 Chr 28:9.
    • Time to repent—patience. There was no more excuse for modern Jezebel’s followers than there was for the Jezebel who ignored the clear message of Yahweh on Mt. Carmel.
    • Consequences: we will be commended / condemned according to our works—for God is just.

24 “‘But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. 25 Only hold fast what you have until I come.

  • Pentagrams and Faustian bargains?
    • Most likely this is another way of referring to the teachings and practices of those who followed Jezebel.
    • Were they claiming special insight, coining the term “deep things of God”? If so, Jesus flips the term.
  • No further burden.
    • Harshness is not the solution!
    • This point some Thyatirans may have failed to appreciate, as we will note at the end of this talk.
  • Hold fast!
    • Don’t compromise! Persevere till the end.
    • The notion that it doesn’t matter what Christians do—we’re saved unconditionally—has not yet become current. Early writers unanimously oppose the doctrine—until the time of a former Gnostic, Augustine.

26 “ ‘The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

  • The one who conquers will share in Christ’s authority (2 Tim 2.12)
  • Rod of iron—Ps 2:9; Isa 30:14; Jer 19:11; Rev 12:5; 19:15. The Roman Empire is inferior to God’s kingdom.
  • Morning star (also 22:16) probably refers to Christ, or else his resurrection.
  • The message is not only for Thyatira, but for all 7 churches—in fact for all Christians, then and now!

APPLICATION

  • The pursuit of self-interest
    • Materialism, consumerism, narcissism, disrespect and misrepresentation (social media), hypersensitivity, identity politics, acceptance of abusive and corrupt politicians, loss of biblical idea of Kingdom of God.
    • Miroslav Volf: modern culture as “the managed pursuit of pleasure.”
  • Sexual issues
    • Living together before marriage, “open marriages,” adultery, the epidemic of pornography, homosexuality, pedophilia, sex trafficking, and unscientific, revisionist definitions of gender.
    • Capitulating to pressure to normalize the abnormal—as though these behaviors are just fine.
  • Accommodation to the world
    • Embarrassed by Christianity’s central claims (?), do we accept the world’s definition of tolerance in order to be accepted by the world—to be “cool”?
    • Pretense that all religions are equal. Yet tolerance implies disagreement or distaste, not approval.
    • Inclusivity of Christianity
      • Every nation, tribe, people, language: Rev 1:7; 5:0; 7:9; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6. Do our churches reflect this vision?
      • Truth is by its nature exclusive. Yet Christianity is also inclusive: we want everybody to come to the party.
      • “The church is the most diverse community on earth, the Bible is the most translated and translatable book in human history, churches are the most numerous social service agencies across the world. This is a time of momentous significance for the future of humanity.” — Os Guinness, Renaissance
      • Are we scandalized by the narrow demands of Christianity? Have we substituted idols (prosperity, social acceptance, sex, power, wealth…) for the true and living God?

CHALLENGE

  • Let's repent from our materialism, sexual sin, and sinful accommodation to the world.
  • Watch out! Beware pendulum swings.
    • AD 200 Thyatira aligned with Montanism—even Tertullian joining the group.
    • Ascetic emphasis on fasting, celibacy, martyrdom. See Colossians 2:20-23.
  • Take care not to go beyond what is written. Rather, simply hold fast to the truth of the Gospel.
  • And why change?
    • God’s righteous standards have not changed. If anything, under the new covenant there is a higher calling.
    • He who has eyes like flames of fire, piercing hearts and minds and exposing every excuse, and sees all.
    • Whoever has ears to hear—listen!