The Church at Ephesus
Rev 2:1-7
1Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
Note: Jesus sends this message through John to the Angel of the church of Ephesus and Identifies himself as “he that holdest the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks”. This identification conveys the authority that Jesus has to send this message and to admonish, rebuke and restore this church to complete right standing. One of the things Jesus says is, ” Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” His introduction covers the question about his ability to remove the candlestick… they are in his hand, that’s who he is…. this is his authority. Another note is that this message was sent by John, a man…. so the Angel over the church at Ephesus must also be a man or else, the Holy Spirit would have delivered the message. By definition, an angel is a messenger of God. In this case, the word angel must be referring to the minister that God has over the church at Ephesus. Also note that Jesus is telling the angel of the Church at Ephesus that he walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks…which we already learned in chapter 1 are the churches. To personalize this even more, Jesus is dwelling, watching and dealing with the Churches even now.
2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Note: Jesus states that he knows their works, labour, patience and that they can’t bear them that are evil….and that this church also tries those people who claim to be apostles and are not. Through this trial, it was discovered that these apostles are liars. This is really important to understand. It’s commanded that you put men and women who are claiming to be apostles or even teachers, preachers etc to the test. The test is to measure what they say and teach against the word of God. How does it line up? Certainly some ministers will get it wrong here and there, but when the teaching deviates from sound doctrine, this isn’t just the way a person interprets the word, this is a deliberate attempt to deceive. It’s the responsibility of the pastors to find these deceivers and confront them, so they don’t infect the sheep. When I was a younger person, if I met someone, and they were a friend to my pastor, I would conclude that they were morally equal. I was young and didn’t know any better. Birds of a feather flocking together is a bad way to determine if a person is godly, liars attach themselves to Godly people, look at the woman following Paul in Acts 16:16-18
- Acts 16:16.And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: 17. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 18.And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
Still, people do determine things like this and if a pastor allows a false teacher to sit up in the congregation spreading false doctrine, then it’s dangerous. The evil one always comes in looking like everyone else to avoid detection, so it takes trying the person with the word of God and discernment, and it’s not wrong to do this. We are commanded to try all the spirits to see if they are of God. In the letter to some of the other churches Jesus speaks about teachers who came in and set up their false doctrines and how he feels about that…. spoiler, he hates it.
3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
What is “Thy first love”?
- Mark 12: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Did this church get so busy with the things of God they no longer had personal time with God? Isn’t this a common thing that happens with Christians today, we get so busy going to church, praying , witnessing and telling other people how wonderful it is to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but we ourselves spend little time with the Lord….and we justify that by telling ourselves that it’s ok because we post a meme on facebook or witnessed or prayed with someone else. Jesus wants a personal relationship, he wants you to REALLY LOVE him and not turn the relationship into a religious experience.
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Remember where you started to lose your absolute love commitment with Jesus…repent and fall in love with Jesus again. Notice that you are instructed to go to the place where things went wrong… then repent…then start again. We go back to where we fell, so we CAN repent…because repenting for a sin isn’t just saying you are sorry, it’s looking at why you sinned and repairing the flawed thinking prayerfully, so you can repent…. you can’t turn away from something you don’t know how to let go of. God wants us to learn from our mistakes, so we don’t repeat them… simply saying I’m sorry isn’t going to change bad behavior. I’ve spent most of my Christian life repeating this cycle of repentance….I think it’s a thing with Christians.
6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.
What were the teachings of the Nicolaitanes? It isn’t exactly known and there are two schools of thought on the name, one being that the name comes from one of the ordained 7 by the apostles to work in the church and another breaks down the name into a meaning ie Nico meaning victory and laos meaning people… victory over the people. They believe this because Nicolaitians were into concurring people, whereas Balaam was in to seducing them. Either way, its Gnosticism and Gnostic beliefs are the enemy of God. We see a form of this Gnostic belief system today in the “prosperity “doctrine that corrupts the Gospel teachings into a man powered belief of self-indulgence. There is no room for a sovereign God in a religion like that, even though they still call themselves Christians. There is a focus on riches now whereas the Bible says lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. I won’t go completely into the doctrine until I’ve had more time to compare the teachings against what the word says. I think because it’s listed a couple of times in the 7 letters, it’s a good idea to study them to make sure I have no roots of it growing in my garden.
7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
The instruction and promise. That verse ,”He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” or a similar phrase is used at the end of the letters to the churches. This tells me how important these letters are to pay attention to….and as I write this, my spirit reminded me that If we judge and correct ourselves, God won’t have too. No matter where we are on the eternal timeline, these letters of reproof and correction are good tools to discipline ourselves and correct our bad behavior by. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your mercy that endures forever and for your love for the church and the corrections you give.
Angie's Bible Study 