Be still: Jesus Messiah, give me ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches today. Amen.
Read: Revelation 2:1-11
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! (vv2-4)
Encounter: The vision of Revelation now continues with seven letters for seven churches in Asia. At this time, the infant church was facing various doctrinal challenges as it worked out what it looked like to follow the Jewish Messiah. False ideas were spreading, and persecution was on the rise from within and outside Jewish circles: the Christian message challenged the status quo religiously and politically.
Against this backdrop, the Ephesian believers are praised for holding fast to truth. Yet in such hostile conditions, you can imagine some of them becoming quite hard-line, and this letter calls them out for a lack of love within the church and for Jesus himself.
Although we are living in a very different time, it can nevertheless be easy in our pluralistic society to try to be distinctive through what we believe about people’s lifestyles. While it is vitally important to hold fast to truth, the church’s real weapon of distinctiveness is the love that can be found within. Love for Jesus and our brothers and sisters in Christ, is a mark of faith just as much as holding counter-cultural ethics.
This passage is a reminder not to use hard truths as a defensive shield in the face of others’ views or opposition. This letter reminds us that our churches should be marked by counter-cultural love, service and justice-seeking.
Apply: Do you speak more than you listen? Do we in my church preach more than we give? Are we as individuals and as churches known more for our doctrines or more for our service?
Devote: Lord Jesus, who holds the seven stars in your right hand, give me wisdom and discernment for doctrine and truth, and help me to do my bit in my church to love others. Strengthen my church to be marked by radical love as well as faithful thinking.