The Seven Cities and Seven Churches of Revelation: Thyatira

Here are some websites and articles that give some information about the city of Thyatira. 

These books about Roman trade and women and religion are available through Ebrary.  You may need your MyValleyForge information to access these books. 

The following articles were originally published in our local newspaper, The Phoenix. 

Thyatira

The Guild City

The Emotional Church

Has Your Consistent Progress Eroded Your Eventual Endurance?

“The Saga of Heartbreak Hill”

I.  Looking at the Text: Revelation 2:18-26

                A.  Commission – v: 18

                                To the Angel of the Church in Thyatira

                B.  Character – v: 18

·         Revelation 1:14

·         v: 18 – Eyes like a blazing fire:  He sees all…penetrating into the soul

·         v: 18 – Feet like burnished bronze:  He holds all accountable

C.  Commendation – v: 19

·         I know your deeds

·         Your love – internal

·         Your faith – internal

·         Your service – external

·         Your patience – external

·         “And now you are doing more than you did at first.”

D.  Condemnation – v: 20-23

·         Jezebel

o   Wife of the Bishop

o   Heresy personified or the Nicolaitan false teachers

o   A woman really called Jezebel

o   The Jewish synagogue

·         Whoever or whatever… Judgment will be full and final. 

·         The dangers which threatened Thyatira were internal rather than external.

E.  Correction – v: 23b-25

·         Do away with the false teachers

F.  Challenge – v: 26-28

·         Overcomes and does my will to the end.  Ultimate victory.

                G.  Call – v: 29

·         He who has an ear to hear…

II.  Looking At Practical Lessons

·         Ephesus:  Has Your First Love Become Your Last Priority?

·         Smyrna:  Has Your Greatest Fear Contaminated Your Genuine Goodness?

·         Pergamum:  Has Your Deceptive Behavior Contradicted Your Orthodox Doctrine?

·         Thyatira:  Has Your Consistent Progress Eroded Your Eventual Endurance?

Are You/Am I Going to Finish Well?

Just One More Day… How can I make sure I give it one more day?  How can I make sure my consistent progress does not end?  I have attached this “Think About It” article “Just One More Day” to be published in our local newspaper, “The Phoenix” which may provide additional inspiration to persevere. 

John Maxwell said, “Discipline is a matter of taking total responsibility for your future.”  I have also attached the “Think About It” article published in 2009 titled “You Get What You Pay For.”  He suggests four truths about discipline:

1.  Discipline Comes with a Price Tag

·         You get what you pay for.

2.  Discipline Turns Talent to Greatness

·         Potential:

o   “Potential means you ain’t done it yet.”   Dr. Phil McGraw

o   Whether a bushel or a peck of potential, unless discipline is applied it will never become performance.

·         You know the excellence of average students and the failure of brilliant students.

o   We are all talented, but greatness only comes to the disciplined.

3.  Discipline Focuses on Choices, Not Conditions

·         Maxwell – we all face discipline one of two ways:  externally or internally.

·         Easy Way vs. Hard Way

o   Without discipline the multi-talented become nothing more than average (if that).

o   With discipline the semi/quasi-talented become literally transformational.

4.  Discipline Does Not Bow Down to Feelings

·         Whenever you do what you know you ought to do even though you don’t feel like doing it, you will be a better person.

·         Why do we have these maxims:  No gain without pain; Groans today, gratitude tomorrow; The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war… We have them because they are true.

Conclusion

Will your final works be more than your earlier works?  What a challenge as we begin this new semester.

Am I willing, as Maxwell says, to take total responsibility for my future?

“Powerful groups, for whatever ends, are disciplined groups… most of the transformation in character came directly from the group acceptance of discipline, including absolute regularity in attendance, faithful obedience in regard to reading and the cultivation, in many instances, of abstemious habits.  We right to be deeply ashamed if we make the requirements of our redemptive society less rigorous and demanding than were those of this essentially pagan society.”   Elton Trueblood  (1948)

·         I Corinthians 1:8 – He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

·         I Timothy 4:15 – Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them; so that everyone may see your progress.

·         I Timothy 4:6-8 – Fought, Finished, Kept

Has your consistent progress eroded your eventual endurance?

To the Church in Thyatira

 ¹⁸"To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
      These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. ¹⁹I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. ²⁰Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. ²¹I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. ²²So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. ²³I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. ²⁴Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): ²⁵Only hold on to what you have until I come. ²⁶To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— 

 ²⁷'He will rule them with an iron scepter;
      he will dash them to pieces like pottery'

— just as I have received authority from my Father. ²⁸I will also give him the morning star. ²⁹He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. 

Paul's first convert was a woman from Thyatira named Lydia:

 ¹³ On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴ One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. ¹⁵ When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

Acts 16:13-15