God's Glory Church

Thyatira was a small Muslim city that traded in scarlet, that is, wool dyed crimson, bright red, purple. Purple was in ancient times a very precious crimson-colored dye, extracted from the so-called “purple snail.” Lydia, a merchant of purple, came from Thyatira (Acts 16:14).

The city of Thyatira had famous copper smelting furnaces. Thyatira did not have any special religious significance. It was neither the center of the cult of Caesar nor the center of any Greek cult. The only religious attraction of Thyatira was a shrine in which a woman, the prophetess oracle Sambate, predicted the future for people.

“And write to the angel of the church of Thyatira: Thus says the Son of God, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like chalkolibane:”(Rev. 2:18).

The word [halkolivanon] means pure copper, something like gold ore. In the city of Thyatira there were famous smelting furnaces, and therefore the Lord uses the images of fire and red-hot copper and bronze familiar to that city. The Lord speaks clearly to them; “Thus says he who is like a refiner’s fire, and whose feet are like the purest copper.”

“I know your works, and your love, and your service, and your faith, and your patience, and that your last works are greater than your first.”(Rev. 2:18).

According to Jesus, the church had works and faith and most importantly “love”, which the church in Ephesus left and even had progress and growth in the ministry “your works are greater than the first.” From this, apparently, one can draw the following conclusion: at first glance, the Thyatira church was strong and prosperous.

“But I have a few things against you, because you allow the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and mislead My servants to commit fornication and eat things sacrificed to idols”(Rev. 2:20).

This Jezebel had great influence in the church of Thyatira, so much so that the church learned something from her. It was the church that allowed this teaching to exist. Each church is responsible for what doctrine they follow, what they accept and what they reject. It is especially dangerous to learn something from “the world” and apply it to the church.

We know that Jezebel, a worshiper of the pagan deities Baal and Ashtoreth, used all her powers to turn Israel away from faith in the living God and to persuade them to serve dead gods. It may even be that the prophetess in Thyatira was a Jew, because in ancient times many Jews were engaged in this craft – they predicted the future. “Jezebel” in the Thyatira church, as in all other churches, misled the children of the Lord, preaching false teaching and leading believers away from the living Christ, to pagan concepts and to a pagan way of life.

The church should be the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) The church should not imitate this pagan world and use its understanding and teachings, but bring true teaching to this world. It is not we who must base our teachings on the revelations and books of this world, but the world must change its thinking according to what is written in the Bible. One of the attractions of Thyatira was the oracle – the fortuneteller Sambate, a female prophetess. It was from this Sambate that the vicious influence on the Thyatira church came.

From excavated inscriptions at Thyatira we know that there were many craft guilds: fullers, tanners, bronzesmiths, spinners, dyers, potters, bakers and slave traders. It was profitable and prestigious to be a member of one of these associations.

To refuse to join such a guild was to sacrifice all respect and support in business circles. They practiced public meals, which were very often held in the temple, and even if not in the temple, they began and ended with a formal sacrifice to the gods, and the meat that was eaten was the same meat sacrificed to idols. In addition, such public meals often turned into drinking bouts and drinking bouts, which corrupted morality. What was beneficial at first glance was, in fact, a direct path to compromise and apostasy from the faith.

Meat sacrificed to idols was one of the big problems of the Church and Christians faced it every day.

When a sacrifice was made in the Greek temple, only a small portion of the meat was burned on the altar; sometimes it was, in fact, only a tuft of hair taken from the animal’s forehead. The priests received part of the meat of the animal, as a kind of tip or casual extra income, and the rest was received by the sacrificer. With this meat he could have a feast with friends within the walls of the temple.

This was the problem for Christians: can a Christian in a temple, or anywhere at all, eat meat sacrificed to idols?

Another problem was that the priests in the temple could not eat all the meat that fell to them, and therefore resold a good part of their share to butcher shops, and this was the best meat.

There was a strong tendency, directed by the woman “Jezebel”, who advocated, in the interests of craft and commercial prosperity, a compromise with worldly standards of life, asserting beyond all doubt that God could protect them from all corruption.

Today, as then in Thyatira, the Lord calls you and me not to compromise with the world for the sake of some dubious gain and recognition. We are called to influence the world, not the other way around

This is what Jesus says at the end of this letter:

“Whoever overcomes and keeps My works to the end, to him will I give authority over the Gentiles, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; like vessels of clay they will be broken, just as I also received [power] from my Father…”(Rev. 2:26-27).

The Lord here speaks of the promise from (Ps. 2:9). It so happened that the church in Thyatira came under the rule of the pagan prophetess and the craft guilds of the city. But we must not be shepherded by the pagans, but we must shepherd the nations with a rod of iron. Whoever defeats whom, shepherds him!