REVELATION: Thyatira and Her Jezebel (part two)

After appreciating the cultural backdrop for the letter to Thyatira, we turn our attention to appreciate the way John uses his command of the Tanakh to continue a teaching well below the surface about the struggle of the church there. A little back story in the Text will be helpful, although it may feel unrelated at first.

When King Solomon was building the Temple in the story of Kings and Chronicles, one of the grave mistakes he made was in not allowing the people of God to do the work on the Temple itself. Unlike the construction of the Tabernacle, led by Bezalel and Oholiab, Solomon outsourced the work of certain specialists — namely that of bronze smiths and stone cutters. Solomon made an arrangement with Huram, the king of Phoenicia, and in exchange for the labor of his best bronze smiths and stone cutters, Solomon gave him twenty towns in the Galilee as payment for their service. Many streams of Jewish teaching show it was this agreement that paved the way for Phoenician-Israelite relations that would eventually culminate in the treaties of Omri and Ahab, particularly the marriage of Ahab to the Phoenician high priestess of Asherah, a woman by the name of Jezebel. Many rabbis will teach that were it not for Solomon’s poor choices with Huram, there never would have been rampant idolatry in Israel.

The few ruins of Thyatira that remain today

But I digress. (Or do I?) Let’s get back to looking out for Text; keep an eye out for Old Testament references as we read through the letter to Thyatira one more time:

“To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:

These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’

To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

“… whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.” Daniel 10 provides the details John references here; Daniel’s main teaching point is that the people of God have to persevere through persecution. What does John say next? “Your service and perseverance …” A fitting reference.

“… that woman Jezebel … misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.” This is a fitting reference for Sambathe. John mentions another “Jewish” prophetess who enticed Israel into idolatry and sexual immorality (if you remember, Asherah worship was centered around the fertility goddess and sexual promiscuity). “I will cast her on a bed suffering …” How was Jezebel killed in the Old Testament? By being cast from a window. “I will strike her children dead.” What happened to Jezebel’s children? They were all struck dead. This entire teaching is pulled perfectly from the Text.

“… I am he who searches hearts and minds …” There are a few options here. It could be a reference to Psalm 139:23. It could also be a reference to Jeremiah 17. I think it’s a reference from Jeremiah. Do you know why? More on that in a moment.

“… will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery …” Here we have an obvious and direct reference to Psalm 2, and most of your study Bibles will catch the reference. What they often don’t catch is that Psalm 2 is written about the one who God says, “you are my son.” Wait. The “son of God” Psalm being referenced in the only letter to mention the “son of God”? This is almost too much.

“… the morning star.” This idea of a rising star is pulled from Numbers 24 and the last oracle of Balaam.

But wait. We already discussed the oracle of Balaam. We talked about the Jewish understanding that Balaam was the guy who taught Balak to entice the Israelites into idolatry and sexual immorality. Aren’t idolatry and sexual immorality the very issues John is trying to warn about here? So these references are perfectly chosen: Daniel to communicate perseverance, and Balaam to communicate the struggle with sexual immorality and idolatry.

But we still aren’t done.

The other references are going to work perfectly, as well. The letter starts and ends with a direct reference to Psalm 2, a psalm we’ve seen before (linked through a beautiful gezerah shavah to Psalm 118) is linked to Solomon. Wasn’t Solomon the guy we pointed out as responsible for the mess surrounding…

Jezebel! And that was the next reference in the letter. Jezebel was the next play that would lead into the “searches the hearts and minds” reference of Jeremiah 17.

Why is Jeremiah important? Because Jeremiah starts out with these words:

“Judah’s sin is engraved with an iron tool,    inscribed with a flint point,on the tablets of their hearts    and on the horns of their altars.Even their children remember    their altars and Asherah polesbeside the spreading trees    and on the high hills.”

John quotes a Jeremiah passage that directly references the Asherah worship introduced by Jezebel, who was referenced earlier, which was the result of a bad relationship that began with Solomon, who was referenced on both ends of the letter!  It is hard to communicate the complex brilliance John is displaying here in his writing of Revelation. Not only is John brilliantly writing about the cultural setting of his day, but he’s using biblical quotations to do it. This would be impressive enough, but John is actually choosing his quotations from stories that already teach to the cultural content at hand.

It’s almost impossible to believe what the book is doing before our eyes. It’s stunning. And to quote one of my favorite teachers, “It’s almost like the author had help.”

But most of this is lost on us as we look toward the future and try to interpret the headlines of our newspapers. Trying to place the happenings of our current world and our understanding of eschatology and rapture theology, we completely miss the message that objective historical study reveals to us right in front of our noses. We want to carry this lesson with us as we continue our study of Revelation.

REVELATION: Thyatira and Her Jezebel (part one)

We will now take an in-depth look at the letter to Thyatira in order to fully understand the principles we just introduced. In this first part, we’ll be studying the cultural context of Thyatira to understand the cultural relevance of the letter. In part two, we’ll look at where John is getting his material and the brilliant way he is using Old Testament Text to preach a sermon within the letter to Thyatira.

So first, we need a little background on Thyatira.

By far the smallest of the seven church cities, Thyatira was estimated to be around 25,000 to 30,000 people. The city sat on the main road and was founded by Seleucus I around 300 BC (or Humenes I around 250 BC, depending on who you ask) as a military outpost. Very much unlike places such as Smyrna, Thyatira was very “blue collar” and unsophisticated in its demographic. Thyatira was a hard-working city full of labor guilds. In fact, we found a list of the registered guilds in Thyatira and its one of the longest lists we’ve ever uncovered. The guilds in the city included leatherworkers, wool workers, weavers, bakers, tailors, dyers, candlemakers, cobblers, potters, bronze smiths, blacksmiths, slave merchants, dyers of purple cloth, and stonecutters. For a city the size of Thyatira, that list is very long, and the jobs are for hard workers.

One of the leading guilds of Thyatira was an extensive network of bronze smiths. They specialized in a very famous kind of bronze that we know as “burnished bronze.” In a world that didn’t have the glass technology of today, burnished bronze was the material used to produce the closest thing to mirrors they had. The Greek word for this special bronze was chalkolibanos.

What little we know about Thyatira comes mostly from coins and currency circulated through the area. The one thing we know about the worship of Thyatira was that their chief god was Tyrimnos, son of Zeus. Scholars have always found this quite perplexing, as Tyrimnos is certainly not a major player in the Greco-Roman Olympiad of gods. Why choose such an obscure god to worship? Some have suggested it's because such a blue collar city would have wanted to root for the underdog. Others have pointed to an obscure reference to the honor of a very young son of Domitian who passed away while still an infant. One inscription was found where the late son was being held by Domitian and the child held the seven stars of the Roman zodiac in his right hand. Could the choice to worship Tyrimnos be a pointed reference to the song of Domitian? It’s a possibility.

One last point of interest about Thyatira is the presence of a Jewish prophetess that operated at a Sybil shrine by the name of Sambathe. Sybil shrines were like minor league oracles and dealt in pagan witchcraft (you might remember our discussion about oracles here). Apparently, from what we can gather from the little information we have, Sambathe was a big proponent of the Roman labor system and the many guilds that not only powered the local labor force, but also — if you remember — would be steeped in pagan idolatry and sexual immorality.

Inside the oracle temple at Didyma

Now, let’s look at the letter of Thyatira and keep our eyes peeled for culture.

“To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:

These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’

To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

“These are the words of the Son of God …” This is the only reference to “Son of God” in all the letters to the seven churches. Why here? Is it because their worship centered on the son of Zeus and the son of Domitian? Fitting that the reference would be found here and nowhere else.

“… feet are like burnished bronze.” Here we see that special export that Thyatira specialized in.

“… your service and perseverance …” This is a fitting reference for such a hard-working, military town.

“You tolerate that woman Jezebel …” Here we have an obvious reference to Sambathe, the Sybil oracle.

“… she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.” This points to the ever-present temptation to engage in guild feasts as would have been widely available in a city like Thyatira.

“So I will cast her on a bed of suffering …” The actual reference in the Greek is to the word cline (where we get the word “recliner”), which is the same word used to reference a “guild couch.” This is where sexual immorality happens at a guild feast.

“I will strike her children dead.” This is a possible reference to the dead child of Domitian.

“… Satan’s so-called deep secrets…” These secrets are a reference to the underworld oracles proclaimed by the Sybil oracle Sambathe.

“… iron scepter … pottery …” These are some of the guilds present in Thyatira — particularly the potter’s guild and the blacksmith’s guild.

“I will also give that one the morning star.” And finally we have the son of Domitian who held the stars in his hand.

Every line of this letter to Thyatira came directly from the immediate culture of the city; the letter is stunning in its clever, cultural relevance. But now, let’s ask the question of what the source for John’s material would be…

2 PETER: The Other Side of the Conversation

In addition to 1 Peter, we have a second letter from Peter to what we would assume is the same region. While the first letter was written to almost all of the region of Asia and Asia Minor — which would have included a Jewish population of around 20% — it is my opinion that his next letter, while meant to be heard by both Jewish and Gentile audiences, is aimed more specifically at the struggles of these Gentile converts. I believe this because of Peter’s address:

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

For a Jewish teacher, righteousness is the idea of generosity and kindness. I read Peter’s address to say, because of the kindness and generosity of Jesus, the Gentiles have also received a faith just as precious as the Jewish faith. His next comments really define what he’ll spend his time arguing for. Peter tells them that they (the Gentiles) have God’s divine power helping them deal with escaping the temptations of their pagan world, and their sinful desires to indulge in those practices.

Peter is going to go on to make very Jewish, rabbinical arguments, which are even rooted in the midrash. Does this mean I’m wrong in my assumption of a Gentile audience? Does it mean a trained Gentile audience? Does it mean the Jewish audience is going to assist in the reading and learning of these teachings? Or does it simply show that Peter is trying to put God’s Text into context and let His words go to work?

Either way, Peter references some real “humdingers” of teachings. The bulk of his letter is a plea to the Gentiles not to give in to the teaching of false teachers. Now, in our typical evangelical world, we immediately start thinking in terms of orthodoxy, assuming there are teachers who are teaching incorrect doctrine and enticing them into wrong belief. But this is obviously not the case with a careful reading of the letter. These false teachers are leading them into wrong practice, and Peter’s main concern is orthopraxy.

Peter and Jude (to be studied later) are going to draw on the same stories from the Text and teachings in the midrash to make their case. I am going to draw these arguments out in detail when we study the book of Jude, but for now, I want the reader to examine the second chapter of Peter’s letter and realize that Peter is talking about these false teachers in the terms of their refusal to acknowledge 1) the ungodliness and idolatry of their culture, 2) their desire for prestige, power, wealth, and influence, and 3) the sexual immorality that is incongruent with the way of Jesus.

When viewed alongside Peter’s first letter, this becomes a great one-two punch addressing the struggle of the Greco-Asian church. You have to overcome the persecution and the suffering you endure in order to be different and tell a different story in the world. But you cannot give in to the ways of culture and lose your testimony, either. You have to remain committed to the mission of God.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. We talked about this all the way back in the books of Joshua and Judges. We were shown what it looks like in the life and ministry of Jesus. And we are reminded of it again now.

God has always wanted a people at the crossroads of the earth — a kingdom of priests ready to show the world what God is like. But the temptation to give in to the ways of culture will be strong, and we must be sure we don’t have any pig bones. The mission of God has always been the same. It has always been one story, and God has always been looking for partners. At different points in history, God has sometimes found those partners and sometimes struggled.

What chapter of history will we be?

1 CORINTHIANS: Broken Body (part three)

If this is the context of the first letter to the Corinthians — if they are struggling with selfish division on one hand and rampant cultural compromise on the other — how will they move forward? Paul suggests the way to conquer the perils of their situation is love.

Surprised? I hope not. We shouldn’t be.

In 1 Corinthians 12–14, Paul moves into an interesting argument. He begins dealing with the unique giftedness of the the Corinthian church — namely, the miraculous gifts God has bestowed on them. Note that this is not written to address rightness and wrongness, or to give my personal opinions about the miraculous gifts. Clearly something unique is taking place in Corinth that isn’t taking place in Philippi or Colossae or Rome. God gets to do whatever God wants, so I’m the last person in the world who’s going to have the audacity to claim such gifts aren’t in use in the church today (albeit in conjunction with some pretty helpful instructions about how to use them properly).

But what does become relevant to our discussion here is that even the spiritual gifts have become an issue of contention and division for the people of God in Corinth. Their desire for selfish identity and glorification seems to know no bounds. They are using their own giftedness to promote their place within the Body of Christ. And couched in the middle of this three-chapter discussion is what we’ve often called “The Love Chapter.”

What many people have often noticed is that 1 Corinthians 12–14 (and maybe beyond) is a chiasm. While I have seen the chiasm identified and described in different ways, it appears Paul has intentionally placed this conversation about love in the center of a larger conversation about unity. Paul seems to be convinced that the way for them to deal with their divisions and find a place of orderly worship is to lay down their own desires and offer themselves to others in love.

This has actually been a thread for Paul throughout the letter. Look at Paul’s argument from chapter 6:

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?

Or this very similar argument four chapters later:

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.

No one should seek their own good, but the good of others. Apparently, Paul thinks that considering others before ourselves is the way to rid our faith community and our worship from the struggles of selfishness and idolatry. Paul says it isn’t enough to make sure that “it’s OK” to do something or to be something. It’s more important to consider the impact on others. Not is my behavior permissible, but is my behavior beneficial for others. Not is my behavior allowed, but is my behavior constructive for the larger community of faith.

Love God. Love others.

When you love others, God says you are loving Him.

I’ll close with some thoughts about the Eucharist — the Lord’s Supper. It seems that in the quest to find what is considered sacred by the Corinthians, even the Lord’s Supper didn’t escape their selfishness and division. Consider this from chapter 11:

In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

The Eucharist resembled a guild feast before it did the broken body of Christ.

A broken body, indeed. This body of believers is broken beyond recognition. Yet Paul will invite them to a table that can remind them of the solidarity they share will all those bothers and sisters who worship alongside them. At the table, we are reminded of the fact that no matter who we are, we come — needy, beaten, battled — to the table of God. We find a reminder of the last night Jesus spent with his disciples and the way he served them selflessly. We are reminded of the thing that brings us together and makes us members of the same family.

We have wrestled in the previous two conversations about how much our day and culture shares in common with that of Corinth.

There is encouragement in the fact that now — 2,000 years later — we are still celebrating the same Eucharist and partaking in the same reminder of all that brings us together. I pray those regular moments will remind us of love incarnate; that we would remember the life and ministry of Jesus and how he loved; that we would be able to examine our own broken body (the Church!) and be invited to a table of grace and solidarity with our fellow brothers and sisters.

A broken body, repaired by the broken body of Christ.

1 CORINTHIANS: Broken Body (part two)

We previously discussed the context of Corinth and its impact on the setting for Paul’s Corinthian letters, and while we made mention of the cultural diversity that drove deep divisions into the people of God, we hinted at another problem glaring at us from the pages of 1 Corinthians. With Corinth being a centerpiece of goddess worship, particularly with the worship of goddesses like Aphrodite and Artemis, sexual immorality ran rampant in Corinth in a way that was unique to most of the rest of the empire.

Consider the following passages:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. (5:1–3) 

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (6:15–20)

Paul then goes on to quite a teaching about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7. I know that for me, as a young person, this was one of the most confusing passages in the Text. Did God not want us to get married? Was married a “second-best” plan for God’s people? It certainly can read that way, but knowing more about the context of Corinth has helped me put everything in its appropriate place (at least within my mind). You might remember when we talked about the Narrative as a whole, we said that Paul’s letters need to be read in context, because he was trying to help each of those churches live out the message of Jesus within their own unique setting. In the context of Corinth, Paul is inviting them to tell a different story with their lives. In a world obsessed with sex, Paul invites the people of God to consider a testimony of abstinence. Paul is not making a declaration of biblical morality, which explains why there are so many qualifying statements [“I give this command (not I, but the Lord)…”, etc.] and suggestions, as opposed to imperative commands (which Paul loves to use elsewhere).

But this isn’t the only issue of compromise the church in Corinth is struggling with. We also mentioned that Corinth brought an incredible amount of vocational diversity. In the Roman Empire, vocations were tied to a system of “guilds.” To understand an ancient Roman guild, I always picture the brotherhood of a fraternity combined with the commitment of a labor union. These guilds were vocational factions that provided a system of brotherhood and camaraderie. They looked out for each other.

The problem with this system, besides the fact that it only fostered more division, is that each guild also worshipped one of the Roman gods. The “guild feasts” of the first century were, almost without exception, filled with drunken debauchery and sexual immorality. These events, held regularly, revolved around intense amounts of drinking and feasting around ceremonial (pagan) foods. With this in mind, we can hear these words:

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.

Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?(10:14–22)

These same feasts also created quite the ethical dilemma. They would often have leftover meat from the celebration. This meat would be sold at a discount meat market within the agora. Could these earlier believers buy this discounted meat? It had been sacrificed to idols! Into this, Paul speaks many words of wisdom:

So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. (8:4–9)

A proper understanding of the context of Corinth helps us interpret this book more accurately. It’s safe to say that these Corinthians had a very hard task living in the midst of the culture of Corinth. They had many challenges that may speak into our own culture (just like our previous conversation).

But how is this body supposed to move forward? How can they deal with this division and idolatry that seeks to tear the mission of God apart?

It is to this end that Paul closes his letter.