Thyatira, the smallest of the seven churches, received the longest letter.
Collectively, their deeds of love, faith, service and perseverance were testimony that this was a true church of genuine believers.
Creating a problem for this church were trade guilds in the community. Membership in the guild of a person's trade was required for active trading and commerce. The problem for believers in the church was that membership required them to attend festivals and worship the false god, or gods, that had “blessed” the guilds productivity. To ease the pressure false teachers had infiltrated the church with adjustments to God's Word allowing for the guild's requirements to be satisfied and still not deny ones commitment to Christ.
Christ's appearance in addressing this church emphasizes His omniscience in rendering judgment. Being omniscient then, as He is now, He knew first hand that these were unbelievers posing as believers. For them compromising a commitment in lip service only was not a serious matter.
Christ's condemnation of this church was because of their ongoing tolerance of this false teaching that was leading people away from Christ, and into idolatry and immorality. Giving the Truth a twist, the fatal flaw was in teaching that spiritual defilement doesn't come from external practices so adjusting to the demands of the trade guilds was acceptable - to them but not so to God.
God expects His people individually, and His church corporately, to be perfect. That is the standard He judges by today and the standard Christ was judging by then.
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In the fall of 1969, Gil began a full-time teaching ministry as Senior Pastor of Indian Hills Community Church. He also earned his Ph.D. from the California Graduate School of Theology. The focus of Pastor Rugh’s ministry is systematic, verse-by-verse teaching of the Bible. As a...
