2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.4 ‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. (Revelation 2:2–4)
The church at Ephesus had great teachers and leaders of apostolic stature in its history. Paul spent three years there teaching them the “whole purpose of God.” (Acts 20:27) When he would see them no more, the leaders met him on the seashore to hug his neck and cry on his shoulder. (Acts 20:37-38) Young bucks like Timothy and Tychicus were assigned to the church, and later even the writer of Revelation, the beloved Apostle John, had a stint there. From what he writes in his short letters, the church never dropped a notch on his prayer list. .
I’ve been in a church like this, with a pastor and others who spent years buried in the Greek and Hebrew, who held the title “Dr.,” and whose teaching featured many “jots and tittles.” Accordingly, there was preoccupation with “what the Bible says,” and a shotgun on the knee aimed at what it didn’t.
It is easy to descend into a mode in which you stand as judge and jury over every activity (and word used) in the church and see things through a singular grid. You wonder how in this environment you could ever “leave your first love,” but in this instance, the Ephesian church clearly had. Typically in an Ephesian environment the halls are filled with heady arguments, confident pronoucements and assertions, letters to the editor (now comments on web pages), and petty differences. If one steps back, you’ve got to ask, “Where’s the love.” In this case, they left it behind at the ”rest area” some thirty miles back.
This problem can’t be better put than Paul does in his first letter to the Corinthians:
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1–3)
There needs to be another side to these type of Christians, a soft under belly. They need empathy for others, but more importantly, a return to Jesus’ feet, where love and understanding and kindness is learned. Where you’re encouraged to put the shotgun down and buy someone a cup of coffee.
‘Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Revelation 2:6)
There was something commendable in this church, however, their stance against the Nicolaitans. It’s unclear who this group was and what they promoted, but rest assured it was not good. Whatever causes cracks in the foundation of the church needs to be vigilantly removed, and this church led the way against these deceivers.
‘Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. (Revelation 2:5)
Here are the deeds the church did in its early days (Revelation 2:2-4). They worked hard. They persevered. They did not capitulate. They “tested the spirits.” (I John 4:1) They were ever vigilant and tireless.
For the Ephesian church, in a sense, this was a halftime speech. They had stopped doing the things that made them successful in God’s eyes in the first place. There was a real danger of losing the game. All they needed to do to make things right were thr “first things first” with fervor. What makes a team great are great players, and the Ephesian church had a deep bench with the best coaches, and they had a history of winning. God still wants the adamant struggle for truth against evil, but done his way.
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