2BC BIBLE STUDY NOTES
Wednesday in the Word
Second Baptist Church
November 15, 2023
Revelations 2:12-17
Verses 12a. The letter to the church at Pergamum. This is the third letter that Jesus gives to John to deliver to the angel or the messenger of the church. Pergamum was the Roman capital of the province of Asia. Located about 50 miles north of Smyrna. Pergamum (or Pergamos) was a beautiful and art-filled city in the province of Asia built along two tributaries of the Caicus River. The first temple of the imperial cult was built in Pergamum (c. 29-26 B.C.) in honor of Rome and Augustus. Pergamum was very wealthy, and it was the center of emperor worship with many temples devoted to idolatry. It was a center of pagan worship and there was a temple to Caesar there as well. For instance, this was the place Jesus says is ‘where Satan’s throne is’ (Rev. 2:13). This could refer to the numerous pagan cults, of Zeus, Athena, Dionysus and Asclepius (Esculapius which means the ‘savior,’ ‘healer’) being of special importance. Pergamum was a center for the worship of Dionysus, Zeus, and other pagan gods. Here was the magnificent temple of Esculapius, a pagan god whose idol was in the form of a serpent. The inhabitants were known as the chief temple keepers of Asia. The symbol for medical doctors with the serpent around the pole is from this idol god Asclepius. Near the top of the city stood an altar to the God Zeus. This temple almost looks like a throne. Zeus was the king of the Greek gods, and this altar was built around 180 B.C. The actual altar is today housed in a Berlin Museum. During the first century, smoke continuously rose from this altar. This altar was the largest in the world at that time. These cults demonstrate the religious history of Pergamum, but “Satan’s throne” could also be an allusion to emperor worship as well. This was where the worship of the divine emperor had been made the determination of civic loyalty under Domitian. This city was full of false idols, false gods, and false teachers. Unlike the Church of Smyrna who faced great persecution this church had persecution but struggled more with a allowing false teaching to continue. Remember when Jesus speaks to this church, he is telling them something that speaks directly to their situation. The readers would have known precisely what Jesus was saying. As interpreters we must try to see exactly how the initial recipients of the letter would have interpreted this letter. What we cannot do is attempt to place a 21“century understanding on a 1st century text. We must put ourselves in their shows to get the correct meaning and then see how we might apply that to our lives now.
Verse 12b. Jesus identifies himself with the title “him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.” We can go back to chapter one to see that the double-edged sword refers to the words of Christ which can cut right through anything. This normally speaks of being able to convict or judge rightly with words. Jesus is sharing that his words cut right through and divide the fact from the fiction, and the truth from the lie. A sharp double-edged sword cuts a clear line and separates. Jesus’s words make a clear distinction between light and dark, and good and evil. This church needs to be separated from some things that have become too closely joined.
Verse 13. Jesus commends the church for not renouncing the faith although they live where Satan has his throne a place of all false gods and idols. This congregation lived in a place of extreme idolatry due to the religious activity connected with the worship of the serpent god of Esculapius, the worship of the Emperor of Rome, and the worship of Zeus. They were persecuted for their faith but remained connected to their faith. Jesus even mentions a person that we don’t know much about called Antipas who was a person killed for the faith. Jesus commends the church for holding onto the faith to a certain degree.
Verse 14. Even though Jesus commends the church for not totally renouncing the faith, he does chastise some of them for allowing false teachings. Jesus shares that there are some in the church who hold to the teachings of Balaam. The story of Balaam can be found in Numbers 22 and Numbers 31:15-16. Balaam was a man who allowed his lust for money to influence him. He also led the people of God to forget their standards of holiness and partake in things God’s people should avoid. The teachings of Balaam are a compromise of holiness. (See 2nd Peter 2:15, and Jude 11) Jesus is admonishing the church for partaking in pagan rituals and practices. For people in this city to eat things sacrificed to idols meant to engage in the feasting and orgies of the various idolatrous temples. It was easy for people to engage in illicit sexual activity in this type of community, and apparently some in the church didn’t see a problem with joining in the various sexual activities of the idol temples.
Verse 15. Jesus also admonishes these members concerning the fact that many held to the teachings of the Nicolaitans. We don’t know who these people were, but we know they were false teachers. The name means "conquerors of the people." It appears they claimed to have a special relationship to God. They professed to be the beneficiaries of intimate revelations that were not given to others, and that they therefore had an inside track with God. They presumed to take the place of the priesthood in Judaism and carried that error into the Christian church. I am speculating but most likely these teachers taught a hierarchy of believers some greater than others. Notice in both admonitions, Jesus highlights the issue of false teachers. This church needed the word preached and taught correctly. Jesus highlights his “double edged sword” words as a prescription for this church that is receiving poor teaching. This is still the prescription. We must preach holiness and Jesus as the head of the church and not man.
Verse 16. Jesus tells those who have accepted these false teachings to repent or turn away from this false teaching or he will come and fight against them with the sword of his mouth. Basically, he will make it clear to them that they are positioning themselves for judgment through the preaching of the true Word.
Verse 17. Jesus challenges the church to listen to what he says and the result of heeding his words will be a two-fold gift. They will receive the hidden manna, and a white stone with their name on it. The hidden manna is the Lord who referred to himself as the manna from heaven. He is hidden to those who don’t believe but clear to those who have faith. Those who turn to the true word will get real bread that sustains their souls. They will also receive a white stone with their name on it, which most scholars are not sure of the meaning. What is sure is that it signifies a position of privilege.
Introduction to Thyatira. Thyatira was the fourth church that Jesus refers to in the book of Revelation. Thyatira was located about 35 miles southeast of Pergamum. It was a very small city, but a busy commercial center. It was on a major road of the Roman Empire, and, because of this, there were many carpenters, dyers, sellers of goods, tent makers, metal workers, and other tradesmen. Everyone who worked there was a member of one or more trade unions/guilds. It was very difficult for the tradesmen and women to make a living unless they were a part of one of these guilds. Each guild had its guardian god/false god and as a member, you would be expected to attend all its functions and participate in its activities which included offerings, feasts and often immoral behavior all in worship to the guild’s idol god. The members of the church in Thyatira were torn between making a living on the one hand which meant having to be part of the guilds, and on the other hand staying faithful to Christ and his standards. In a city whose economic life was dominated by trade guilds the believer would be faced with the problem of compromising on an almost daily basis.
Verse 18. Jesus starts this letter out describing himself as the Son of God, a kingly title from Psalm 2 referring to a King making judgment. He also describes himself as one who has eyes like flames and feet like white bronze. This description is also found in chapter one, and we know it to mean that he has eyes that can see all things even in the dark, and he has feet that can crush in judgment. Flames are most useful in the dark. When things are dark, bright flames make everything visible. Jesus is sharing that he can see in the dark. Jesus is highlighting that he can see behind closed doors and in dark places in which people are used to hiding their sinful behavior. Bronze was the hardest metal known at that time and is often used to speak of judgment. These images of metal and fire are not accidental. These were familiar terms to the metal workers of Thyatira. The city was known for the brass armor made there. A coin of Thyatira showed Hephaestus, the divine smith of the Greek pantheon, hammering a helmet on an anvil.
Verse 19. Jesus gives this church a glowing evaluation. He acknowledges their work, love, faith, and ministry. They are recognized for even doing more than before. I must admit that I would love to hear this from the Lord.
Verse 20. Even though the Lord commends the church, he has a stern word of correction for this church. Jesus tells this church what he sees. He sees a woman in the congregation who calls herself a prophet of God, but is really a false prophet. This woman taught that the people could participate in the sexual perversion of the trade gods. Jesus calls her a Jezebel. Jesus reached back to the story of the prophet Elijah, King Ahab, and his evil wife Jezebel (see 1 Kings 16:28-2 Kings 9:37), who lived in northern Israel around the latter part of the ninth century B.C. Ahab was the eighth king of Israel, and he did evil in the sight of God. He married a Canaanite woman, Jezebel, who was the daughter of a pagan priest named Ethbaal, who himself worshipped Baal. Jezebel was a priestess who worshipped the goddess Astarte (later called Aphrodite by the Greeks and Venus by the Romans). Ahab brought Jezebel to Samaria, the capital city of the northern tribes, and she brought her gods and Baal priests with her in the hope that the Jews would compromise some of their beliefs. Baal was a fertility god, and Baal worship services included using male and female temple prostitutes in ungodly sexual practices to appease him. According to 2 Kings 9:22, she was personally involved in sexual immorality and witchcraft. Jezebel ranks as the most evil woman in the Bible. She symbolizes people who totally reject the one and only living God and promote their own gods, causing their followers to enter into idolatry and all the sexual immorality connected with their sacred rites. "There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife" (1 Kings 21 :25). The Jezebel in the church of Thyatira was a self-appointed prophetess. It appears that she was encouraging the Christians to become deeply involved in the life of the trade guilds and their various unholy activities of sexual immorality and idolatry. She also encouraged the eating of meat that was used in idol worship. The trade guilds were worshipping and giving honor and devotion not to the one and only living God, but a god of their imagination, an animal, or a demon. Before the Romans or Greeks would go to their pagan temples to worship their gods, they would stop by the local meat market and purchase some part of a slain animal to offer as a sacrifice to be burned before their gods. When the pagan purchased meat and offered it to the idols, he knew he was involved in worshipping spirit beings from another world. The apostle Paul stated that those who worship idols are worshipping demons (see 1 Corinthians 10:20).
Verses 21-23. Jesus states that he has given her plenty of time to repent, but this woman is not willing to repent of her sins. God had shown patience and mercy to this woman within this church, with the hope that she would come to her senses and repent of her sins. But finally, Jesus saw with eyes like blazing fire that she was unwilling to repent of her spiritual adultery. Jesus saw that things had reached the point that some severe discipline needed to be applied to this person, her spiritual children, and her followers. Our Lord did not call Satan to bring some punishment upon her, but he stepped in personally. First, he warned that he was going to place Jezebel, who had lain on a bed of sexual pleasure, on a bed of physical and emotional suffering. Then the Judge of all the earth moved in with judgment against her followers (her children), telling them that they would experience intense judgment unless they repented. There is no hiding sin from the presence, love, and power of our glorified Lord and Judge. (See Psalm 90:7-9) God calls us to be holy and that has not changed.
Verses 24-29. There was a godly remnant of believers within this church who chose not to follow the teachings of this self-appointed prophetess whom Jesus called Jezebel. They were not lured away from Christ by Jezebel who taught the "deep things" of Satan (see 1 Corinthians 2:10). Be aware of preachers who have some new knowledge or some deep knowledge especially if it gives a license to sin. Jesus tells the church that if they stay faithful, they will overcome and be given authority. Jesus wasn’t saying that they were in danger of losing their salvation, he was reminding them of the rewards that they could look for in view of what they had to give up for the faith. The faithful of the church needed to be reassured that their faith would be vindicated in the end. He also states that they will receive the morning star. In 1 Peter 1:19 and Revelation 22:16 our Lord Jesus is called the Morning Star. The morning star is the one that appears just before dawn, when the night is the darkest. To those within the church of Thyatira who had rejected the person called Jezebel and her teaching of darkness would receive the Bright and Morning Star, Christ himself, and in his power, they would be able to shine in that dark city.
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