And so we come to the church at Thyatira. This is the longest of the seven letters, which, ironically, was written to the smallest and least important city. Unlike the other towns, we don’t know very much about Thyatira, so it’s not so easy to understand and interpret the contents of the letter.
We do know that Thyatira was situated in a geographically important place, where several roads join together, passing through valleys. It must also have been something of a military centre, as it was in a strategic place to defend the greater city of Pergamum. Like many other places, there were temples to various religions, but it wasn’t a great religious centre. One thing that Thyatira was famous for, was as a commercial centre. With all the roads joining up there, it was a great place of trade, and was a centre of the wool and dying industry. As a consequence of this, it had the largest number of trade guilds of any town.
So, what did the author, John, have to say to this young church? He begins by praising them. He tells them that they have love, which has resulted in service, and they have faith, which has resulted in endurance. These are good virtues, and he praises them. Like all good critics, John has praised his friends, before he moves on to criticise.
It seems that the Christians in Thyatira are in trouble because they tolerate a woman called Jezebel, who has supposedly been a profit, but has been leading people astray. The immediate question raised, is who is this Jezebel? There are. Of course, several possibilities, but the only one that makes any real sense is that Jezebel represents the traders and merchants in the city. She probably represents all of them, but it could be that she represents Lydia, who was one of the most prominent.
Because Jezebel has been leading people astray, she is to be thrown on a bed. Decoding the Greek, it probably means that if she goes on as she has been, then disaster will come to her. The language used is not literal, but figurative, that is to say that she has been unfaithful, and untrue to God.
In verse 24 we are told that it is God who searches both minds and hearts. This is not just a glib phrase, in the way that we often use it, but it was chosen deliberately to show that God was not just interested in her intellectual life, or her emotional life, but in both.
John describes those things that have gone wrong as the “deep things of Satan”. It could be that this was people who were deliberately making Christian faith too complicated, too deep, too confused philosophically, as if they were presenting some special, hidden, secret, knowledge. This is an ancient heresy, and it’s technical title is Gnosticism. What John may be suggesting is that this teaching was so complicated and difficult that it was not from God at all, but was the devil. The other possibility is it had been suggested to people that they needed to deliberately experience bad things, in order to know what good was. In any case, it wasn’t a good thing.
Towards the end of the passage, verses 26 and 27 are a quotation from Psalm 2, and are a forecast and picture of God’s triumphant work, how God will reward those who have been faithful to him. The great paradox about all of this is that the tiny infant church, struggling against the might of the roman empire, ought, if there was any logic or natural justice, to have simply been extinguished and vanquished by the Roman empire. But it wasn’t, and that’s because of the absolute conviction of the early church in the gracious power of God, and the absolute strength of that power in comparison to the mere might of Rome.
There are several things for us to consider for our church life today in all this. Firstly, how do we interact with the world? In what way do we see our Christian faith played out in the world? When we engage with other people, is our Christian faith something firm, or something that we compromise as needs must? Do we find ourselves in situations that demand conduct or actions that aren’t really compatible with Christianity? About four years ago, at the General Assembly, there was a debate on ethical investment. This debate wasn’t just a debate in general terms, but was focussed upon the central funds of the church, which are naturally invested widely, holding shares in a firm called GKN. Many people were observing that they thought it was wrong for a church to hold shares in a company that made its profits from the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Then somebody from Somerset stood up and said that he’s worked in a factory making nuts and bolts and screws all his life, and he couldn’t see what was wrong with that, and that firm was also part of GKN. The ethical investment debate has gone on, and over the last four years increasingly ethical investment policies have cost the Minister’s Pension Fund, and I have a vested interest here, over £1 million pounds. Our calling from God is quite clear: Christian values must be the basis of all that we do. But that can cost us an awful lot of money. Can we respond to that challenge?
Secondly, a rather different example is certain aspects of current inter-faith work. In some cities Christmas has been, quite mistakenly and regrettably, been re-named “Winterval”, and the nativity story removed from the festivities, in the quite erroneous belief that it was offensive to people of non-Christian religions. I have never met anyone from another faith who has been offended my Christians celebrating festivals – any offence only comes if Christians were to try to force other faiths to adopt our position. Most people of other faiths find it laughable when Christians do not stand up for their own faith. Of course we respect very deeply other faiths, other routes to the same God, but if we are so intent to be excessively polite that we bend over backwards to subjugate our Christianity, we make ourselves a laughing stock. The motto of the London Interfaith Centre, which is housed in a United Reformed Church, is “true to others, true to self”. I would suggest that things like removing the nativity from Christmas in response to comments that haven’t been made is not really about inter-faith relations, but about allowing secularisation to win. This is a choice of how much we compromise our own faith, or don’t.
Thirdly, we need to recognise the similarities of the position that these early Christians found themselves in, and our position today. The early Christian church was a tiny part of its society. Most people worshipped other Gods, and the mighty Roman empire was deeply hostile to Christianity. Logically it ought to have died a quick and easy death, but it didn’t. The reason it didn’t died was the sheer conviction in God’s goodness and how that could overcome all things, even the might of the Romans.
Today most people in our society worship other Gods: football, cars, sport, electronic gadgetry. And we Christians are a small remnant fighting, not the mighty Romans, but the might of secularism. And all of this in an age when more people are spiritually seeking than any other age for a very long time. How did the early Christians do it? Simple confidence in God, and the actions that came from that. Their confidence in God was such that when they thought God was telling them to do something, they did it. Their confidence wasn’t such that they sat around waiting for God to do everything for them. One of the characteristics of the Reformed tradition is our belief in the sovereignty of God. I wonder if, in the face of the mighty other Gods that we face today, not least secularisation, we can have the confidence not only to stand firm in our complete faith in God, but also to do what God requires of us?
It’s certainly a deep challenge to us to consider if we have the confidence to stand firm in our faith, and not to compromise. For God, the cross was the result of not compromising, but the ultimate reward was the new life of resurrection. In our breaking bread and sharing wine, we remember the confidence and firmness of God, and how he comes to us to give us that confidence.
