The Church of Thyatira

This church faced problems of their own making because they forgot who they were worshiping.

Revelation 2:18-29

Letter from

This letter, uniquely is stated as being from the Son of God, none of the others are. The key to dealing with the problems of this church is to constantly remember who we worship, and who we serve.

Why is this important?

Exodus 20:2-5

2. I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

He has eyes of fire. Fire is first and foremost a symbol of the righteousness of God, and also of his purity, and judgement of sin. Even the fires of hell are righteous judgement.

Finally we see he had feet of brass. They represent God’s authority and judgement.

This is our God, pure and in authority.

The problem

Although this church was known for it's good works they faced two key problems.

The first was women in leadership, teaching the church, which is clearly against God's word, see 1 Timothy 2:11-14 for example.

The second was what was being taught. This was a teaching of permissively adapting God's word to the prevailing culture. In today’s terms many churches teach cultural integration. While it is true that in order to understand the bible it helps if you already understand the culture of the time and place it was written, unless God specifically binds commands to that time, place or culture then it is still relevant today.

If the word of God does not fit the culture in which you life then it is the culture that must change, not the word of God.

Remember who it is we worship.