7 churches problems (part 1)
Now of the Seven churches, ones that had a great testimony were the Smyrna church (
persecuted church), and the church of Philadelphia (
church of brotherly love).
Now in the Thayer Greek definitions, the definitions it gives, concerning Smyrna is the word “
myrrh”, and concerning Philadelphia is “
brotherly love”.
Now concerning the churches which had problems, here are the words defined by the Thayer Greek dictionary, concerning them.
The church of Ephesus’s defining word is “
permitted”, and the church of Pergamos is “
height or elevation”, the church of Thyatira is “
odour of affliction”, the church of Sardis is ”
red ones”, and Laodicea is “
justice of the people”.
That is what the Thayer definitions say, though concerning the Laodicea church (which I call “
the lukewarm church”), how the word Laodicea came to mean justice “
of” the people, I am not sure, but many times, in certain cases, churches took on a resemblance of what the meaning of the places were, and even within some of the things that took place in those places, it seemed to have some influence, in some way, and even in some cases, God may have used things within their culture, so to describe their problems which I will cover one of them,
in part 2 of the 7 churches problems, when I mention the Laodicea church.
And in this particular post, we will just
cover 2 of the churches with problems.
So now, let us look at the problems.
Spoken to the Ephesus church
-Problem 1: Rev 2:4 “...thou hast left thy first love…”
Now the Ephesus church did have some things that was worthy, in how they hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans, and have tried some that said they were apostles, and found them to be liars, and they had patience in some manner, and for his name’s sake laboured, but even in doing all of this, they had left their first love.
And in order to get back to this first love, they had to repent, and get back to the first works.
Well what was their first love? Well it was when they first became born again, and were in love with Jesus, they had to get back to that.
But how? By doing the first works, what first works ?
Well what was the first work that started in us at salvation ? It was sanctification, it was taking up our cross daily and following him, and they were going away from that, and the motivation of their work was no more being done through the care and love of God, but rather just simply going through the motions, forgetting about one’s sanctification, which actually brings us away from love, and going unto just say disputing for the sake of disputing, and going through the motions without the care of God.
And at the end of each mention of these problems, I just want to remind people of what the defining word for each church is, which for Ephesus, it is “permitted”. |
Spoken to the church of Pergamos
-Problem 2: Rev 2:14 “...because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication….” , Rev 2:15 “...So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans…”
Now the things that God was not pleased with, were that they held to the doctrine of Balaam, and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
Here is a comment on the issue of Balac casting a stumblingblock before the children of Israel:
(Balaam's Stumblingblock Strategy)
(..Balaam had been hired by King Balak to curse Israel, but God intervened at every turn. Instead of curses flowing from Balaam’s lips, blessings poured forth. Balak’s fury grew with each failed attempt, but Balaam had learned something crucial: if you cannot destroy God’s people through supernatural means, perhaps you can undermine them through natural appetites.
The Strategy of Immediate Gratification
Balaam’s advice to Balak was diabolically simple: use food and fornication….
...The effectiveness of Balaam’s strategy becomes painfully clear when we turn to Nehemiah 13. Even centuries later, the consequences of these compromises still plagued God’s people. What began as seemingly small concessions - sharing meals with pagans, intermarrying with unbelievers - had grown into systemic spiritual decay. )
Now the word fornication is used in many ways in the bible, it is used to point to sex before marriage, but also it refers to sexual perversion, even via a sexual appetite for someone else other than your wife, also there is spiritual fornication, and these things tend to lead to other things.
Now as concerns eating meats sacrificed to idols, the bible gives advice on this, it says that first of all you should refrain from this, but for the conscience sake of a weak brother in the faith, and not to bring confusion via your witness, were people think you think it is ok to sacrifice meats to idols.
Rather than walking in pride, we should walk in the love of Jesus, and just obey him, walking in his love in every way, even towards a weak brother.
And by all means refrain from fornication, so it seems that some type of loose living was in the mix.
And then there is the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which may have had some mixture of loose living within it, but it seems that there was some distinction between the doctrine of Balaam, and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
The word Nicolaitans may have been a mix of someone‘s name and it’s main doctrine.
And the word Nicolaitans means “laity conquerors.” And it is said by this preacher that they are preachers who exploit the people instead of spiritually developing them.
And there is plenty of evidence of this clergy over the laity stuff happening in the early church, as we will later see.
And the defining word for Pergamos, is “height or elevation”. |
So those were these churches problems, we will cover the next three, in my next post.
