The Seven Churches - Ephesus

Revelation 2:1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands“

Ephesus was a very strong and prominent city in Asia Minor. It was more like a roman business capital in this region. The temple of Artemis was a very strong structure being one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was located here. It had 127 pillars each of size around 40 feet. We read that in Acts 19:27. There was also a market name Agora in the city where everything was traded. However, to enter this place people had to take incense and drop into a bowl or something which indicated that they worshipped Caesar. This was very hard for the Church to thrive. Some historians believe that the apostle John live here for some time and wrote the gospel of John from here. It is also believed that Mary spent her last days here as John was taking care of her. These show the importance of the Church and its troubles. This church did not fail completely as we read in a letter two decades later by Ignatius of Antioch who commends the church. So, the church was obedient to John’s letter to them and so, survived well.

When Jesus introduces Himself, He is the one who holds responsible for all the messengers of the churches and monitors all the churches’ progress and activities. It means that the Churches are not completely independent from the Lord’s monitoring. Since the church will be reading the whole book, they should be able to see that this church is not exclusive to the Lord and so, learn to respect others. We also should understand that Jesus is comfortable and walking only here because this is his responsibility and earning.

The first message to the Church is that “I know”. This is not a word of authority but rather like a responsible leader who knows what its internal matters are. This confidence should always be to a church. We should not be worried that we are not recognized. The fact that God knows the church better than the stars. The stars have different tasks to look at the Lord for instructions and perform them. We also should note that the stars are not nearby and accessible but the Lord is to the believers. The listener or comforter in the Church should be the Lord Himself.

The Lord commends the church’s attitude towards works, enemies and suffering in the following verses. For works, the church worked well, toiled hard when needed and also was patiently waiting for results when they were delayed. If the church was intolerant when answers were delayed, it would have been otherwise. When enemies were present, the church could not bear their presence. Patience towards the Lord is appreciated but when evil comes, the church should not wait taking things easily. They could have waited saying “the battle belongs to the Lord”. This is the Lord’s place and even though He is nearby, He loves when its own members drive them away. When it comes to suffering, the church was persecuted severely with lack of resources and punishments, but John says that you have not gone weary or you still are willing to suffer more.

The problem with this church is that it had abandoned its first love. This is at most times mistranslated as the church’s love has decreased when years passed by, but the verse says that the love was completely abandoned. The Greek original uses the word Agape which is the love towards God. The church had a very good perseverance with God but the love was totally abandoned when the book was written. Jesus says that this problem is not tolerable and it works against the church. Also, the Lord mentions that the church has already fallen even though it had all the good qualities.

Repent that you have forsaken your love for God and do the works you did at first means that you should be looking at the scripture and the previous foundations which were laid and do them properly. This also means that the Church should work as it worked when it was beginning. New churches have great ambitions and glorious plans, but when time goes by the love becomes a tradition and so, it is lost completely. If it does all the works of its early days, there is redemption.

The punishment to Ephesus is the worst among the other churches as the Lord says that its status of being a church will be lost. The city and the congregation will be there, but the lampstand will be lost which will hold the Holy Spirit high. The good quality about its hatred about Nicolatians (Can be adulterous, and eat things sacrificed to Idols) is a great sign that helps fight this problem. The other good qualities do not.

The final victory if the church could conquer this problem is that it will eat from the tree of life and live forever with the Lord.

Amen.