seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Revelation 2:1 “To the angel[a] of the church in Ephesus write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. 6 But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. 6 But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
a. Revelation 2:1 Or messenger; also in verses 8, 12 and 18
In past postings, I've mentioned the preachiness of the commentaries. God Vine, which is generally a short comment on each verse, has pages on verse 6. This is, apparently, where Revelation begins to hit its stride.
The church at Ephesus had a problem. There was controversy in the church over what to do with meat that had been on the alter and what to do about sex in the church. HHHMMMM eating and sex... to very dear subjects.... what could the church possibly do that would cause them a problem concerning eating and sex? Well... they brought in a corrupt preacher.
I got this from a site named renner.org.
According to the writings of the Early Church leaders, Nicolas taught a doctrine of compromise, implying that total separation between Christianity and the practice of occult paganism was not essential. From Early Church records, it seems apparent that this Nicolas of Antioch was so immersed in occultism, Judaism, and Christianity that he had a stomach for all of it. He had no problem intermingling these belief systems in various concoctions and saw no reason why believers couldn’t continue to fellowship with those still immersed in the black magic of the Roman empire and its countless mystery cults.
It was very hard for believers to live separately from all the activities of paganism because paganism and its religions were the center of life in these cities. Slipping in and out of paganism would have been very easy for young or weak believers to do since most of their families and friends were still pagans. A converted Gentile would have found it very difficult to stay away from all pagan influence.
I remember, when I was a kid, the Catholic Church changed the language of Mass from Latin to English. At the time... it was "the end of the church". The idea was... people weren't learning the Latin so the message was getting lost in translation. Seems naive now doesn't it.... with all the allegations going on in the church... how do they hear the message?
The Catholic Church isn't the only church with problems..... Several years ago, a protestant church right in Southern Maryland held a meeting to discuss requiring people to quit smoking cigarettes before joining the church. The problem.... those butts are messing up the parking lot. I was there.
Several years ago I attended a meeting of a church right there in Southern Maryland. That church wanted to change the message of the church. They would no longer preach that Christ is the only way to Salvation. They wanted to be more inclusive. The church coffers were running low and to increase attendance... they needed to be more inclusive.
This is from amazingdiscoveries.org.
The Nicolaitanes claimed to be Christian but taught that obedience to God’s law was unnecessary. The Bible teaches that the saved shows evidence of salvation by living a changed life in harmony with God’s law and character. 1 John 5:3.
There's a discussion about the timeline of Revelation... was it written for the past, present, or future. Well.... from what I'm seeing.... it could still be all three here.... the church started to go bad while John was still alive. They were compromising. So many churches are going wrong now... people look down on Christians because of the "holier than thou" or "I'm better than you" attitudes. I don't see it getting any better any time soon. Christians are no longer known for their Christlike character.... they are known as money grubbing hypocrites. As far as I can tell, to the unsaved... we are all hypocrites.
Church leaders.... wake up.... we're not getting the message.
Church members... wake up.... we're not getting the message.
