Ephesus: When Faithfulness Outlives Love

– First Part: Listening Posture

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as drifting. Drift is what happens to other people — people who stopped caring, stopped believing, stopped trying. Drift feels dramatic from the outside. From the inside, it feels responsible. It feels like showing up, doing what needs to be done, carrying weight without complaint. Drift rarely announces itself as failure. It often disguises itself as faithfulness.

That’s why the opening of Revelation doesn’t begin with warnings to rebels or corrections for the careless. It begins with letters to churches that are still standing. Churches that are functioning. Churches that would have described themselves as committed, orthodox, and steady. And before anything is explained, defended, or applied, a voice speaks.

These are not lectures. They are not theological arguments. They are letters — spoken, personal, addressed. Each one begins the same way, not with information, but with recognition. And each one ends the same way, not with instruction, but with an invitation: “He who has an ear, let him hear.”

That sentence changes how we listen. It tells us that the most important thing in these messages is not what we already know, but whether we are willing to hear what is being said to us. In Scripture, hearing is never passive. Hearing means receiving. It means allowing ourselves to be addressed rather than remaining observers. These letters were never meant to be handled safely at a distance.

Which is why the first thing Jesus does in every letter is speak in the first person. He does not begin with doctrine or diagnosis. He begins with presence. I know. Before anything is affirmed or confronted, Jesus establishes this: nothing about the life of this church is hidden from Him. Not the effort. Not the endurance. Not the strain of staying faithful over time.

And that matters for how we listen. Because it removes the instinct to defend ourselves before we’ve even heard the letter. It reminds us that these words are not spoken by someone guessing, speculating, or generalizing. They are spoken by One who sees clearly and completely. One who knows not only what is visible, but what it costs.

If we rush past this, we miss something essential. Jesus does not speak first as a corrector. He speaks as One who has been present long enough to recognize the shape of a life. These letters assume familiarity. They assume history. They assume relationship. And that tells us something important about how they are meant to be received.

We are not being invited to evaluate churches, classify types, or locate ourselves on a chart. We are being invited to listen as people who are already known. To let the letter speak before we decide what it means. To resist the urge to manage the message instead of hearing it.

So before we move any further — before we explain, interpret, or apply — the only honest posture is this: to listen as if the letter might be addressed to us. Not to our opinions. Not to our theology. But to the lived shape of our faith. Because these letters do not ask first whether we are right or wrong. They ask whether we are willing to hear.

– Second Part: Jesus Speaks / Ephesus Recognized

Jesus begins the letter the same way He will begin every letter that follows: “I know your works.” Before He affirms anything, before He confronts anything, He establishes this one reality — nothing about their life together has escaped His attention. He does not speak as an inspector arriving late to the scene. He speaks as One who has been present all along.

He knows their labor. Not occasional effort, but sustained work. The kind of faithfulness that shows up again and again without recognition. He knows their endurance — the ability to remain when leaving would have been easier, quieter, and less costly. He knows that they have tested what is false and refused to be impressed by it. This church has not been naïve. It has been careful. It has been alert. It has paid attention.

That matters, because Ephesus was not an easy place to follow Christ. This was not a sheltered congregation protected from cultural pressure. It lived in one of the most influential cities of the Roman world — a center of commerce, politics, and public religion. Ephesus did not hide its gods. The worship of Diana shaped the city’s identity, economy, and imagination. Her temple dominated the landscape. Her festivals structured public life. To belong to Christ in Ephesus meant standing visibly apart from what everyone else took for granted.

This church did not retreat from that environment. It endured within it. It learned discernment because it had to. False teaching was not theoretical here — it was constant. Ideas competed. Loyalties were tested. The pressure to blend, soften, or accommodate was real. And yet Jesus says they did not tolerate what was false. They did not surrender clarity for comfort. They stayed alert.