Thyatira: Pressure to Compromise

Some 40 miles east of Pergamos lay Thyatira, a city important for its commerce in wool and textiles. When the city was excavated from 1968 to 1971, its architectural remains showed it had the typical Roman style of colonnades and public buildings and a temple to the goddess Artemis. The city was especially famous for its fine woollen cloth, usually dyed in a shade that came to be called Thyatiran purple. It was from Thyatira that Lydia, a seller of purple and convert to Christianity, had come from (Acts 16:14). 


Christ says about this Church: “I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first. Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” (Revelation 2:19-20).


Since Thyatira was a religious centre, and the home of powerful guilds demanding religious participation of their workers in their banquets, it was difficult for Christians to resist falling into idolatry. The strong trade guilds in this city would have made it very difficult for any Christian to earn his living without belonging to a guild.


But membership involved attendance at guild banquets, and this in turn meant eating meat which had first been sacrificed to an idol. If a Christian did not conform, he was out of a job. The teaching of Jezebel (probably a symbolic name) apparently reasoned that foods offered to idols are of no consequence, and consequently advised Christians to eat such meals.


But these meals all too readily degenerated into sexual looseness, and some Christians would welcome a heresy of this type because it enabled them to maintain a Christian personality while tolerating and even engaging in immoral heathen revels.


Christ reminds the Thyatiran brethren they must come out of that worldly society, no matter how enticing it appeared, and not compromise with the truth. His promises to those of Thyatira who remain faithful is that they will be arrayed, not in Thyatiran purple, a cloth used mainly by Roman royalty, but with the spiritual mantle of rulership over the nations at His second coming. He tells them that “he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’—as I also have received from My Father” (Revelation 2:26-27).


In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte exiled Pope Pius VI to Valence in France. It was a most humiliating and abrupt end to a long rule of power of the Catholic Church, that lasted over a millennium. Shortly after, Christian Bible Societies spread all over the world, with their work neither unhampered nor threatened by papal or Roman constrictions. After the First World War, the Catholic Church lost its powers over most of Europe; this created an opening for different sects of Christians who were still kowtowing to the doctrines of Catholicism to spread an adulterated message of the gospel to a wounded world.


Religion was commercialized and it was constitutional to worship any ‘god’ freely, and the Church was totally free to focus her energies on translating and printing the Bible in as many languages as possible, and to conduct missionary and humanitarian activities all over the world. Thus, 1798 marks the date when the Catholic Church lost her temporal power over the kings, dukes, and princes of much of Europe. But she had already passed most of her pagan doctrines to the emerging gospel workers and missionaries to preach to the world. Jesus Christ, in His fourth letter to the church in Thyatira, warns the Church against following the doctrines of evil spirits masquerading in religious garments.


The preaching of ‘material’ gospel, widely known as ‘prosperity’ preaching, which is based on collecting offerings from the desperate ones, quickly replaced spiritual longing for God. This proliferation of religion changed the image of the Holy God to a bank C.E.O. who pays interest on deposits. Apostle Paul warns young Timothy: “But know that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money… having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away” (2 Tim. 3:1-5).


Remember, Paul warned the Corinthians “…not keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner –not even eat with such a person” (1 Cor. 5:11). There are other very strong and instructive series of warnings by Paul in most of His Epistles that the Church should recognize and not adhere to any variety of false “winds of doctrine” that may be packaged in “cunning” and “crafty” ways.


“Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the Church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking misleading things, to draw away disciples after themselves” (Acts 20: 28-30).


What Paul had warned of did happen. Heretics entered not only the Ephesian congregation but most of the rest of God’s Church and subverted it into false understanding and practices. The knowledge of God’s Kingdom became lost to the overwhelming majority of those who were swept away into a false salvation. Ever since the first century, when Christ established His Church, it has always had to fight the good fight of faith; for the truth.


God’s people have always had to be careful —extremely vigilant— about the dangers of false ministers coming among them and perverting some or all of the doctrines of God. And these charlatans always teach a false gospel.


Some proclaim a “gospel of salvation” or “gospel of grace.” Others believe a “gospel of miracles” or a “social gospel” or a “gospel of paradise” or a “gospel of prosperity” or “gospel of healing” or “gospel of faith.” Still others merely think of “gospel music” as the true gospel. “Now the Spirit expressly says that in the letter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim 4:1). These different gospels are all from the satanic realm!


Religion –which is simply justification of works over grace –graced the entire 19th century, and was fast eating deep into the gospel to the extent that by the dawn of the 20th century, it has succeeded in swallowing the entire truth of the gospel.


Even those who profess to worship the same God have often times been at odds with each other, to the point of spilling blood. Such has been the case between Northern Ireland’s Protestants and Catholics for generations; and more recently, many Islamic sects like Fatah, Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East, slaughter precious people like themselves under the covering of religion; claiming responsibility for suicide bombings and blood-filled religious wars on their own fellow Muslim brothers. Yet, could a loving God be behind such religious confusion? No. God is not the author of confusion.


Religious confusion along with doctrinal disagreement was instigated by satan –the author of confusion – and has been the cause of such violence throughout the ages. Religion, after dangling before our eyes the promise of “going to heaven”, has deceived zealots into slaughtering millions of gullible victims.