If Jesus wrote you a letter, what do you think it would say?
Would it be a message of praise—or of censure?
Maybe it would be both.
What things are you getting right about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ? What things are you getting wrong? And just as importantly, what does doing better look like?
For seven congregations in the first century, this was more than just a thought experiment—it was a reality. The Church members there didn’t have to wonder what a letter from Christ would look like—they could see it for themselves.
Toward the end of the first century, the resurrected Jesus Christ—the glorified Son of God, enthroned in divine splendor at the right hand of the Father—sent a letter to His Church.
That letter has been preserved for us in the book of Revelation—the record of a prophetic vision given by God the Father to Jesus Christ and then to the apostle John (Revelation 1:1). And although the vast majority of Revelation is focused on key end-time events “which must shortly[1] take place” (verse 1), the second and third chapters set the stage with a special message for “the seven churches which are in Asia” (verses 4, 11).
Revelation is a book filled with prophetic significance, but it’s vital to remember that these seven churches[2]—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea—were seven literal congregations filled with literal disciples of Jesus Christ.
Bible scholars have debated the prophetic significance of these seven churches for centuries. Do they represent progressive eras of Church history, with each church indicating the dominant characteristics of God’s people during various times? There are some compelling parallels between these two chapters of Revelation and our understanding of Church history, and this is covered in our Life, Hope & Truth articles on the “Seven Churches of Revelation.” But that’s not what this Journey is going to focus on.
This Journey is about what we can learn from the seven congregations that existed 2,000 years ago. They were filled with flesh-and-blood human beings just like you and me—Christians who had accepted the sacrifice of Jesus and who called Him their Lord, their King and their Savior.
They got some things right.
They got some things wrong.
But they were people. More to the point, they were people whose successes and failures we can learn from.
Think about it. These are not the words of a human apostle, but of God Himself, intended for the growth and edification of His people. He told them what they were doing right, He told them what they were doing wrong, and He told them the changes they needed to make. What we have in these letters to the seven churches of Revelation is a valuable set of insights into Christian living.
The world has changed a lot in 2,000 years—but people haven’t. Not really. The challenges we face might wear a new coat of paint, but the issues at their core are still, in many ways, the same.
As individuals, we will each find ourselves succeeding at some aspects of Christianity—and failing at others. What we have in these letters is a treasure trove of guidance on how to continue doing what’s right and how to overcome and stop doing what’s not. From Ephesus to Laodicea, there are powerful lessons for each of us in the timeless words of our Savior and King.
What Jesus had to say in Revelation 2 and 3 was not just for men and women who lived and died two millennia ago. Century after century after century, Christ’s words remain relevant for anyone who becomes His disciple.
Which means, of course, that they were written for you.
And me.
We are, each of us, commanded to “hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 2:7).
Even now.
Especially now.
Before we can talk about the individual messages Jesus sent to each individual congregation, there are two bigger-picture items we ought to take care of. One is the general structure of the messages, and the other is what it meant to be a Christian in first-century Asia Minor.
We’ll start with Asia Minor. If we want to understand the words written to an ancient world, it helps to have some familiarity with that ancient world. And while there are many details unique to each of the seven cities, it’s worth painting a general picture of the world these cities existed in.
The seven churches addressed in Revelation were all located in the Roman province of Asia—which is, confusingly, only a very small portion of the modern-day continent of Asia.
What the Romans and New Testament writers called “Asia” was actually part of the peninsula that forms the western portion of modern-day Turkey. The Greeks knew it as Anatolia (“the place of the rising sun”), while later historians would begin to distinguish the whole peninsula as Asia Minor (from a Greek phrase meaning “Little Asia”).
In fact, the peninsula’s significance was anything but little. Throughout its long and storied history, Asia Minor served as the stage for some of history’s most significant moments. It was the birthplace of . . .
Asia Minor was also home to two of the seven wonders of the ancient world—the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. It also housed the Library of Pergamos, a close rival to the Library of Alexandria, and was probably the birthplace of coinage (and maybe even parchment as well).
By the time of the Romans, control of Asia Minor had shifted between multiple kingdoms for the better part of 2,000 years. The end result was that the Roman province of Asia was filled to the brim with a diverse mixture of cultures—and, notably, the host of pagan gods that came with those cultures.
When it came to the religions of the lands they conquered or annexed, the Romans generally took the approach of “the more the merrier.” The ancient world often viewed gods as territorial—stronger in some locations than others (see 1 Kings 20:23). Rather than risk upsetting the local gods of new territories, they chose to incorporate those gods into their own pantheon.
Generally, this worked the way Rome wanted. Local territorial gods were slowly absorbed and blended into the national pantheon, and rulers could rest easy knowing that a vast array of gods were being kept satisfied enough to pour out their blessings on the empire at large.
There were, however, occasional wrinkles with that approach.
The Jews were one of those wrinkles.
In the Roman view of things, the Jews were atheists.
Yes, the Jews believed in a God, but they were adamant that the other gods worshipped across the empire weren’t real. They refused to participate in the sacrifices to those gods, refused to acknowledge the emperors as divine—sometimes they even refused to touch money that carried the emperor’s image.[3]
Although there was no love lost between the Jewish people and their Roman overlords, the Romans were generally willing to overlook Jewish idiosyncrasies. They might not have been team players, but they also didn’t try to convince other Roman citizens to abandon the gods that were believed to be providing for the safety and prosperity of the empire. For the most part, the Jews kept to themselves—and so, for the most part, Rome left them alone.
Christians were a different story entirely.
At first, Romans officials considered Christians to be just a sect of Judaism—the result of infighting and squabbling over their own holy texts. When some of the Jews tried to bring a legal case against the apostle Paul for preaching that Jesus Christ was the prophesied Messiah (Acts 18:4-6, 11-13), the Roman proconsul was quick to reply, “‘If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews, there would be reason why I should bear with you. But if it is a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves; for I do not want to be a judge of such matters.’ And he drove them from the judgment seat” (verses 14-16).
In other words: “This is an internal debate. Sort it out among yourselves. I don’t care.”
Except, in time, the Romans would care. These Christians, as they came to be known, were not content to keep to themselves the way their Jewish brethren typically did. They had a lot to say about a Messiah, and they were determined to preach Him to the whole world.
Soon, it became obvious that this was more than an internal Jewish debate. Itinerant preachers were traveling across the empire, spreading the message that God “now commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). They were telling people—not just their fellow Jews, but all men everywhere—that it was time to abandon their idols and false gods, repent and worship the only true God.
And people were listening.
Gentiles (that is, non-Jews) were flocking to hear these words. Whole cities were coming together to hear something that, for centuries, had been an exclusively Jewish message (Acts 13:42-49). And that message wasn’t staying localized in Jerusalem—it was spreading like wildfire across the Roman world. Throughout the empire, Roman citizens began abandoning their gods, refusing to acknowledge the divinity of the emperor—and convincing others to do the same.
The message had “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6-7), and it showed no signs of stopping.
The cities of Asia Minor—an area where Paul spent a great deal of time spreading the gospel message—were a hotbed of economic activity. Natural resources and fertile land meant Asia Minor was equipped to grow, produce, manufacture, export and trade all manner of goods. Many cities in the peninsula enjoyed a great deal of wealth and prosperity—and as a result, the trade guilds of the region thrived.
Good news for everyone . . . except Christians.
The trade guilds of the Roman world weren’t like the trade unions of today. They were social groups, more like fraternities—and they were everywhere. “Records exist of guilds of bankers, doctors, architects, producers of woollen and linen goods, dyers, workers in metal, stone, or clay, builders, carpenters, farmers, gardeners, fishers, bakers, pastrycooks, barbers, embalmers, and transport workers” (E.M. Blaiklock, The Christian in Pagan Society, p. 10).
Trade guilds were tight-knit brotherhoods. Trying to work a trade without belonging to its guild could be professional and social suicide—a slap in the face to your fellow trade workers.
The problem for Christians was that each trade guild worshipped its own patron god. “All members of trade guilds were expected to worship the god of that guild. On regular occasions, the members of the guild would offer a sacrifice to its god and eat the meat at a licentious party. If a member did not attend this party, the absence endangered the member professionally and socially” (Carl Gibbs, et al., Introduction to Hermeneutics, p. 227).
Economic survival seemed to require participating in pagan rituals that flew in the face of God’s commandments. Spiritual survival meant withdrawing from foundational elements of society and potentially making enemies out of neighbors and colleagues.[4]
“In the Graeco-Roman world, religion permeated all aspects of culture; there was no separation between the secular and the sacred” (Cynthia Long Westfall, “Roman Religions and the Imperial Cult,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary). The pantheon of the Roman Empire was all-encompassing, and there was no safe, socially acceptable way for a Christian to untangle himself from its convoluted webs.
“It is difficult for a modern Christian to grasp the pervasive nature of the paganism with which his spiritual forbears had to deal . . . The conscientious Christian had to absent himself from public festivals. They opened with pagan adoration and sacrifice. His membership of a trade guild, and in consequence his commercial standing and goodwill, involved the awkwardness of ‘sitting at meat in the idol’s temple.’ His very shopping raised the problem of meat which had been sacrificed to idols. Here was the true source of the animus against the Christians. It lay in ‘the way in which the new religion struck at the roots of social intercourse, and menaced the time-honoured fabric of society . . . The popular view that Christians were anti-social kill-joys with a more than Jewish hatred of the human race, if mistaken, is at least intelligible’” (Blaiklock, pp. 21-22).
“Christians were accused of atheism because they rejected the worship of the local gods that were supposed to be the source of health and welfare for the Roman Empire; they were also accused of hatred of humanity because they refused to participate in city life that was defined by Roman religion . . . In the eyes of Roman officials and the public, Christians were causing a decline of religion, including an increasing neglect of religious responsibility, a challenge to the empire’s unity, and a violation of Roman traditional morality” (Westfall, ibid.).
A decade or two after John wrote Revelation, a Roman governor in Asia Minor would write to Emperor Trajan looking for advice on how to prosecute the Christians in his jurisdiction. He explained how he executed those who refused to renounce their faith, but spared those who were willing to both curse Christ and perform acts of worship before statues of Trajan and the Roman gods (Pliny the Younger, Epistulae X.96).
This was the world of the Christians of the seven churches of Revelation. These were the societal pressures they faced day in and day out. The pressure to be like the world around them—to make spiritual compromises in order to escape social and economic persecution or even death—was tremendous.
When we read these letters to the churches, it’s important to remember that they were written to real Christians living real lives and facing real challenges. Even though their world looked radically different from ours, the lessons they needed to learn then remain not just relevant but absolutely vital for us to learn now.
What the Church needed to hear 2,000 years ago, it still needs to hear today.
Footnotes
[1] For the God who views 1,000 years as a day and a day as 1,000 years (2 Peter 3:8), “shortly” has a different meaning than it does for us. Revelation was written 2,000 years ago. God can look at this span of time just as we might look at 48 hours.
[2] For the sake of clarity, it’s important to note that these weren’t seven distinct church organizations. They were seven congregations of God’s Church. In this Journey, we’ll use a lowercase “church” to refer to the individual congregations and a capitalized “Church” to refer to the collective grouping of all God’s people.
[3] For everyday commerce, the Jews typically used special copper coins minted specifically for them. This way, they wouldn’t have to handle coins describing the emperor as “son of a god” (R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, p. 830). Mark 12:15-17 shows there were exceptions to this.
[4] Perhaps some trades or guilds allowed more freedom. We aren’t told exactly how the apostle Paul as a tentmaker (Acts 18:1-3) and other Christians working trades dealt with such things.
