Revelation 2

The letter to Ephesus (2:1-7) commends the church for its discernment — it has tested those who claim to be apostles and found them false, and it hates the works of the Nicolaitans — but it has this against the church: it has abandoned the love it had at first. The rebuke is carefully calibrated. The church at Ephesus has become theologically rigorous at the cost of the animating affection that gave its discipline its point. The letter calls it to remember, repent, and do the works it did at first. Ephesus was the largest city on the western coast of Asia Minor, a major commercial port and the site of the great temple of Artemis; its church had Pauline roots (Acts 19, Ephesians) and a deep tradition. The letter to Smyrna (2:8-11) is the most purely encouraging of the seven — no rebuke, only acknowledgment of tribulation and poverty and the slander of those who say they are Jews but are not, and a call to be faithful unto death with the promise of the crown of life. The letter to Pergamum (2:12-17) addresses a church in the seat of Roman imperial power in the province — Satan's throne, likely a reference to the temple of the emperor cult there — and the letter to Thyatira (2:18-29) is the longest, dealing at length with the figure the writer calls Jezebel, a prophetess whose teaching the church has tolerated.

The letters have been read as historical portraits, as symbolic ages of the church, and as timeless types of community failure and faithfulness. In their original setting they are almost certainly actual letters to actual communities, written with knowledge of each city's specific situation. Pergamum's identification as the location of Satan's throne fits its role as the administrative and religious centre of Roman authority in Asia Minor, complete with a prominent altar to Zeus and a major temple to the imperial cult. Thyatira was a centre of trade guilds, and the teaching of Jezebel may be connected to participation in guild meals that involved meat offered to idols — the same issue Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 8-10, handled more rigorously here. The formula to the one who conquers at the close of each letter picks up the Greek word nike (victory) and applies it, throughout, to endurance in faithfulness rather than military or political triumph.