Bible Gem 2196 – To The Angel of the Church in Ephesus (Rev 2:1-7)

“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands: “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting. But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. But this is in your favour: You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans, just as I do.

Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God.”

Revelation 2:1-7

Placing these words into the Gem leaves me with a sense of the immensity of the task before me. I don’t want to turn this into a commentary which leaves you, my readers, overwhelmed with detail. But there is so much detail in this short passage that it makes me wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew. There are so many things to comment on. But I will try to keep the main thing the main thing. I have commented already on the fact that this letter is addressed to the angel of each church. So is Christ addressing an angel over the church in Ephesus, the pastor, the bishop or simply the messenger who delivered the letter? I believe it is the Angel over the church. But I will hold that thought for later when I draw the threads together after dealing with all seven churches. What I will say at this point is that I find it interesting that so many churches like to include their guardian angel in their name – St John’s Church Orewa or St Andrew’s Presbyterian, St Mary’s Holy Church or better yet All Saints Church Dunedin.

I could spend time investigating the references made to Jesus Christ for each of the seven churches but that would be premature at this stage. Again, I will do that after we have addressed each of the seven churches. In the letter to the church in Ephesus, Jesus is referred to as “the One who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands.” Simply He is the One who has power over the angels and who walks among all the churches. As we were told in the letter to the Hebrews, Jesus is greater than the angels.

Now the letter shifts into evaluation mode, a format that is used with each church. What follows is preceded by the statement: I know all the things you do. This statement could spark fear in the heart of anyone. Jesus knows us intimately. He knows how we think, what we think. He even knows our thoughts before we think them and He knows our intentions and our motivations. This One is telling the believers at Ephesus, “I know all the things you do.”

Notice what Jesus does. He approaches what he has to say to them by first commending them and then rebuking them. He doesn’t hit them with the hard things first. Rather he tells them the things they are doing well first.

The Commendations:-

• I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance.
• I know you don’t tolerate evil people; you check them out.
• You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

But I have this complaint against you:-

• You have left your first love.

Well, that is not so bad is it? There are three commendations and only one rebuke. Read a little further and you will see something else in their favour.

But this is in your favour: You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans, just as I do.

Revelation 2:6

There is much we could talk about from this rather pithy passage. Suffice to say for the moment, I will focus on the rebuke: You have left your first love. What does that even mean. It can be taken two ways as indicated by the translation in the NLT.

You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!

Revelation 2:4

I am sure like me, you can see how the translators of the NLT have come up with this translation. You have left your first love becomes You don’t love me or each other as you did at first. Clearly the reference is to the first and second commandment.

1. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength
2. Love your neighbour as yourself

I am left to wonder whether Jesus was referring more to the first commandment here. If we contrast the first commandment with the second then the inference is that the first commandment is loving God and the second is the extension of the first. That is, you have lost your first love for Me, was what was in focus. Most translations keep the love unspecified with the general sense “you have left your first love” without which love was being spelt out. The Good News Bible and The Passion Translation make it specific with the words “your love for Me” whereas the NLT has the reading above, ‘you don’t love me or each other as you did at first!’ I sense the primary focus was “their love for God”.

What was meant by “you have left your first love”? The verb is [ἀφίημι / aphiēmi] which means “to abandon”, “desert”, “forsake”, “leave behind” or “put aside”. For which Jesus has the following strong admonition – “Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.” Look how far you have fallen and turn back to Me! Repent.

The final issue I feel I should focus on is “how far they had fallen”. How far who had fallen? The Ephesian Christians of course. After all that is who was being addressed with the first reading of the circular letter. Let’s reflect for a moment on this church – the Church in Ephesus. Not the All Saints Anglican Church of Ephesus nor the First Presbyterian Church of Ephesus but the church of All the Saints of Ephesus. This church had a rich Christian heritage. Paul had spent three and a half years in Ephesus discipling the saints (Acts 19:10). Paul had a special relationship with the leaders in the church (Acts 20:13-28). Apollos (18:24) together with Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:26) had spent time with the saints in Ephesus. John was the Bishop of Ephesus and he returned to Ephesus to pastor the church at the end of his exile on Patmos. There are some who think Mary, the mother of Jesus, spent time in Ephesus with John who had been given the assignment to care for her by Christ on the cross (Matt 27:56). Yes the Church in Ephesus had a rich heritage of being nurtured by some significant leaders.

So how did they do? What happened for Jesus to make this comment to the angel who oversaw over this church. After all it wasn’t the angel who had left his first love, it was the saints of Ephesus. Ignatius wrote in the 2nd Century “I am just thrilled with your love for the Lord and each other.” By the end of the 2nd Century / beginning of the 3rd the church in Ephesus had lost its first love. David Pawson reports an anecdotal account of a tourist asking numerous people in the village of Ephesus in the 20th Century if they knew anything about Paul or John. Hardly any responded positively, most didn’t know anything about either of them. And yet this was the church in the city with the largest population in the Roman Province of Asia in the First Century. By the beginning of the 2nd Century Christ was saying to them, “You have abandoned your first love. Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.”

Let him or her who has ears, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. If Christ can say to the Ephesians, “You have lost your first love”, it can happen to anyone. Repent and return now.

Ian

Is it little wonder why Christ asked the messenger / angel to begin with Ephesus when delivering this letter?

Ian

“If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.”

Jesus Christ

You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.

Jessica, age 8

The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

G K Chesterton

It is not how much you do, but how much LOVE you put into the doing that matters.

Mother Teresa