9. The Seven Churches: Ephesus and Smyrna

In the last third of the first century AD the Roman Empire was trying to consolidate its political unity by forcing everybody to worship Caesar. The early Christians refused to say ‘Caesar is Lord’ because they believed ‘Jesus Chris is Lord’. Consequently, throughout the ancient world they were persecuted, hounded and murdered. Their unwillingness to burn incense and say ‘Caesar is Lord’ meant that they were condemned for the rest of their lives.

On the island of Patmos, John saw beyond the might of Rome to the certainty of the victory of Jesus Christ. He wrote down what he saw in what became known as The Revelation of John the Divine and he sent letters to the seven churches in Turkey which were situated just over the horizon.

Unique writings

A hundred years before John was born, a new kind of writing was developed in Israel called apocalyptic literature. The style of writing was different to anything that had ever been seen before. It was highly picturesque, and concerned not this present evil age which was beyond saving and unable to be reformed, but the age to come.

Apocalyptic writing indicated that God was sovereign and was in command over all history, that behind the activities of generals, merchants and politicians, God was still in control. Through a series of symbols and pictures expressing the inexpressible, God patiently worked out the future for those he loved. Those who read apocalyptic literature were generally people suffering under some tyrant or bloodthirsty emperor. The result of reading such literature, and understanding the special code in the form of images, was that the readers received great encouragement and hope.

Turkey’s significance

The churches to which Revelation was sent were on the western side of Turkey. Turkey’s position geographically was of great significance: it was the major trade route between the East and the West, and the land bridge for great migrations of people between Europe and Asia.

The city at the strategic, narrow entrance to the Black Sea was called Byzantium, later Constantinople, and later still, Istanbul. For twenty-seven centuries it has stood sentinel on the Bosphorus strait. It is the fabled, mystic city. As the people say of themselves, ‘If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze at Istanbul.’ Certainly, dawn over Istanbul while it is shrouded in mist with spires, minarets and domes glistening in the early light, is one of the traveller’s great experiences.

For centuries, Constantinople was, after Rome, the second most powerful city in the world. Across the country administered from the capital large powerful cities developed at suitable ports, in fertile valleys, at the sites of thermal springs, along the trade routes and by the mountain fortresses that guarded the country. From among these cities, seven were chosen by John because of the churches situated in them.

John, while confined to Patmos, one Sunday experienced a state of spiritual intensity he described as ‘in the Spirit’, where the Lord took control of him and spoke to him. John wrote:

I turned round to see who was talking to me, and I saw seven gold lamp-stands, and among them there was what looked like a human being, wearing a robe that reached to his feet, and a gold band around his chest. His hair was white as wool, or as snow, and his eyes blazed like fire, his feet shone like brass that has been refined and polished, and his voice sounded like a roaring waterfall.

He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth. His face was as bright as the midday sun. When I saw him I fell down at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the first and the last. I am the living one! I as dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I have authority over death and the world of the dead!”

The Lord as high priest, king and prophet was standing among seven lamp-stands, symbolic of the seven churches in Turkey that were faithfully keeping the light burning in the darkness of persecution, and in his hand he held seven stars, which were bishops, ministers and pastors of the churches in Turkey.

There were seven churches mentioned by John, all within 150 miles of Ephesus where John had ministered for so long, each on the circular road. The other six were Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Other cities nearby also had churches including Colossae, Hierapolis, Troas, Magnesia, Tralles and Cyzicus.

The Church at Ephesus

The people of Ephesus could picture the scene of the Lord appearing to John in majesty, for in their city was a huge marble statue of the Emperor Domitian, the scourge of the Christians. This statue was possibly used in the prevailing Caesar-worship. The vision of the greatness of Jesus as Lord countered this daily vision of the persecuting Caesar.

The largest of the seven cities, Ephesus was only sixty miles eastward over the horizon from where John wrote. It was by the site of the present city of Seljuk, and some beautiful remains of the city John knew have been restored by archeologists. The city lay at the mouth of the River Cayster, between the sea and Koressos mountain range.

It was a great centre commercially, for the trade routes moving through its streets and its great port admitted ships from the seven seas, but especially from Athens and Rome. The trade routes across the Aegean terminated in Ephesus, and the great trade roads from the River Euphrates came down the Maeander and Cayster River valleys to Ephesus. Strabo called it ‘the greatest emporium of Asia’.

Its significance as a port was always under threat because of the silting of the harbour due to the massive erosion from the mountains caused by a policy of deforestation in many parts of the ancient world. Trees were valued as charcoal for the metal industries, and forests were cleared without replanting. The omnipresent goat ate out the smaller shrubs and the over-cropping allowed the winter rains from the high mountains to sweep the topsoil into the harbour.

Several times the city had to be moved down towards deeper water. The harbour silted and became a bed of high reeds. Today, you can walk from the marble streets of the harbour-side of ancient Ephesus twelve kilometres through three metre high reeds before you reach the present coastline. At the time John was writing, the harbour was already badly silted and her best days of trade were behind her.

That it was a great city of commerce can be seen from the size of both of the markets, or agoras, which are divided by a chessboard pattern of streets. From the top market, you can walk down the marble street of the Curetes, past the ruins of patricians’ houses, temples and public buildings with courtyards and fountains. The street was lined with statues of famous citizens and heroes.

The bottom agora was 111 metres square, surrounded with colonnades and covered with marble with a central sundial. Here food, animals, cloth, spices, slaves and tents were sold alongside craftsmen who made copperware, jewellery and pottery.

Ephesus was a great educational centre as can be seen by the marvellous library of Celsus. Built soon after the time of John, it demonstrates the importance of knowledge. The three-storey building was built over the tomb of a hero. It housed over 12,000 scrolls of papyri. Today, its façade of columns, niches, statues and doors at the top of a flight of nine steps, twenty-one metres wide, make it one of the great archeological sights of the world. The statues represented wisdom, virility, goodwill and knowledge.

It was a centre of religious worship with the temple of Artemis – or Diana as the Romans called her – dominating the flat plain. It was the largest building in the world and one of the seven wonders of the world. It was a huge structure from every aspect. It stood upon a platform 73 metres wide and 127 metres long. It was surrounded by one hundred columns each more than seventeen metres high. The temple was three times the size of the Parthenon in Athens. It was magnificently decorated in statues, painting and gold and jewels from all over the known world. Ironically, nothing remains except a sad collection of roundels from various columns. Following its destruction in AD 262, everything was looted, demolished and carried off by armies, conquerors and local peasants who built their houses and sheep pens with the finest of materials.

The main alter was about seven metres square and behind it was the huge statue of Artemis, possibly carved from a meteorite. A good Roman copy of the many-breasted goddess, the symbol of nourishing nature, today stands in the museum nearby. She has a temple and a basket upon her head, her arms are in long embroidered sleeves, and her legs are covered in carvings of animals and bees. A large rectangular stone, once the base of a huge statue of Artemis, was recovered by archeologists and it today bears the carved sign of the cross with this inscription: ‘Demeas removed the deceitful image of the demon Artemis and put in its place this sign which drives idols away, to the praise of God and the Cross, the victorious, imperishable symbol of Christ.’

The decline in the sales of souvenirs of this statue of the goddess, caused by Paul’s preaching, resulted in a riot that ended up in the magnificent theatre, beautifully restored today and still able to seat 24,550 people. Holes round the stage held demountable iron bars for wild animal acts, and Paul’s comment that he ‘fought wild beasts in Ephesus’ was probably literal.

It was a political centre with the Roman government governing the whole region from these streets. Large houses, with beautiful mosaic floors, frescoed walls and painted ceilings tell of the luxury of these political leaders. Some houses average one hundred square metres and a few reach 1000 square metres in size.

This was an assize town where taxes and duties were levied. As such it became an important banking centre. Coins have been found around the Treasury which originated in scores of foreign countries, but were brought to Ephesus by pilgrims and traders. It was the seat of the Proconsul of Asia from 133 BC. The might of the Roman Army was obvious. Today a frieze of fully armed Roman soldiers complete with armour, helmet, sword, shield and sandals still stands where early Christians, passing the stadium, would remember how Paul reminded them to put on ‘the whole armour of God’ – including the breastplate, girdle and sandals – and to take up the helmet, sword and shield.

It was also a centre known for immorality. Ephesus was the sex capital of Asia. Even on the streets of Ephesus today we still see carved into the stonework the sign of a heart, a bare-breasted woman and an arrow pointing to one building along the Marble Way that was a brothel. Its intention is still as clear as the day it was first cut into the marble.

Paul had established the church in Ephesus during a two to three year ministry . He was imprisoned here and caused a citywide riot. When Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians from Ephesus, he sent greetings from Priscilla and Aquila, the husband and wife team of tent-maker evangelists. Paul had stayed with them in Corinth, working as a tent-maker alongside them following their expulsion from Rome with the other Jews under the Edict of Emperor Claudius in AD 49. They had then crossed from Corinth to Ephesus and supported Paul in the new church. Timothy also ministered here and in the hinterland, and John had come to Ephesus from Jerusalem to minister to the people. Tradition says that John brought the aging Mary, mother of Jesus, with him, and she died in Ephesus. It was from here he wrote his great Gospel according to John.

How a British archeologist discovered the site and excavated Ephesus dispels the romanticism of archaeology and demonstrates the hard work and commitment required for the task.

The British Museum sent John Turtle Wood to the area where he was to work faithfully for the next eleven years. His training as an architect led him to make some calculated guesses as to where in the swamps the temple of Artemis might be and where, later, the great theatre might be found. For six years as he combated malaris, thieves, derision and the Turkish government, Wood hammered long steel rods into the ground hoping to strike buried marble, but with no success. Then, during a winter when he was forced to work on higher ground, he discovered the great theatre where Paul had been dragged. Digging through centuries of accumulated rubble and dirt, he uncovered some inscriptions on the outside of the theatre, copies of letters sent from the Emperor Hadrian and, on the southern entrance, an account of a Roman’s gift of gold and silver images of Artemis housed in the temple. He had lived in Ephesus only decades after Paul!

Soon afterwards, twenty feet below the surface, he reached the base of the greatest building of the ancient world! It took him another four years of labour to retrieve the famous columns and to open to the world the site of the temple. Such is the life of an archeologist.

The letter to the church at Ephesus has four emphases. Paul opens with the words of praise: ‘I know what you have done; I know how hard you have worked and how patient you have been … You are patient, you have suffered for my sake, and you have not given up.’ This was high praise for their works, their patience and their enduring of suffering. Paul had foretold that ‘fierce wolves’ would come among the flock of God after he had left them. But they had remained faithful.

Secondly, he observes a problem: ‘this is what I have against you: you do not love me now as you did at first.’ That church had lost their love for Jesus Christ, their faith had faded into mere form, and they had lost the real power of their faith.

Thirdly, Paul orders a procedure: “Think how far you have fallen! Turn from your sins and do what you did at first.” The answer to their problem was simple. They had to remember how far they had fallen to repent of their sins, and to reaffirm the faith as they did at first. This threefold procedure is still of value for those who have turned away from their primary commitment to Jesus.

Finally, in the letter he offered them two promises. The first is: ‘If you don’t turn from your sins, I will come to you and take your lamp-stand from its place.’ If there was no true repentance, then they would cease to be a church, their light would be taken from them and, if they didn’t return to their first love, they would love their gift of eternal life. That threat still remains for Christians today.

The second promise is to those who remain faithful: ‘To those who win the victory I will give the right to eat the fruit of the tree of life that grows in the Garden of God. They would fulfil the destiny originally planned for Adam – to live in paradise and to eat of the tree of life. To have trees in a garden was the ancient idea from Persia – and every dry and barren land – of ‘paradise’ .

Each one of us who lives in a strategic city of commercial and political significance, with religious and educational centres, libraries and brothels, needs to be reminded that Jesus knows where we live, he understands our situation, and he calls us constantly back to our first love lest we lose the light of life.

The Church at Smyrna

The second letter that John wrote was to the church at Smyrna. This church was thirty-five miles to the north of Ephesus. Today, Smyrna is the thriving city of Izmir, the third largest city of Turkey, with a population approaching one million.

At the time of John it was a magnificently planned city of well over 100,000 people, rebuilt on a planned basis after disastrous destruction in 580 BC. Her deep harbour never silted, and nearby are the ruins of the old forum. In earlier times a ring of palatial homes round Mount Pagus could be seen from afar.

The city of Smyrna was known among Christians for two things: first it was the centre of Caesar worship and consequently opposition to the early Christians. In 195 BC the temple of Dea Roma was built, the first such temple to be built honouring Rome as a god. They quickly proved their loyalty to Rome by instituting Caesar worship.

Christians refused to worship Caesar as Lord and so were persecuted for their faith. Second, it was a centre of opposition to the Christian faith by Jews. A holocaust occurred, Christians being persecuted by Jews whom Jesus described as not true Jews, otherwise they would not have acted that way. Archeologists, working under the difficulty of having a living city on top of the ancient one, have not been able to complete extensive digs in Izmir, and to date no reference to a Jewish community in the first century has been found.

To this church in Smyrna the message came by the hand of John writing from the island of Patmos: ‘Do not be afraid, be faithful!’ That theme of faithfulness under suffering was spelt out in the letter to the church at Smyrna in four ways.

Firstly, they were to be faithful in times of poverty. ‘I know your troubles; I know that you are poor – but really you are rich!’

Most of the early Christians were poor and many of them had been plundered by their persecutors. The use of this word indicates they were completely destitute. But they were rich in heavenly blessings. Jesus knew their situation and supported them in it. In AD 107 just a few years after John wrote, St Ignatius, the third Bishop of Antioch on the Orontes passed through Smyrna on his way to Rome, where he was martyred in the Colosseum. Later, on board ship, John wrote to commend them for their ‘immovable faith as if nailed to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.’

Secondly, they were to be faithful in time of scorn. ‘I know the evil things said against you by those who claim to be Jews but are not; they are a group that belongs to Satan!’ How those early Christians suffered from slander and scorn. They were charged with cannibalism because it was
said that they ate and drank the blood and body of Jesus. They were charged with incest because they called one another brother and sister.

Thirdly, they were encouraged to be faithful in times of imprisonment. ‘Don’t be afraid of anything you are about to suffer. Listen! The Devil will put you to the test by having some of you thrown into prison and your troubles will last ten days.’ Their imprisonment was going to last long enough to hurt them, but short enough to eventually be concluded. Their endurance would be tested to the limit, but not beyond.

Fourthly, they were to be faithful in times of death. ‘Be faithful to me, even if it means death, and I will give you life as your prize of victory. ’ Jesus had promised his followers persecution and death and Peter had encourage Christians to be faithful even to death. The cross was the symbol of their discipleship.

The faithful Christians in Smyrna were willing to face even death. Their crown was to be eternal life not hindered by the second death of judgement. This letter, like that to the church in Philadelphia, was one of unqualified praise.

Little did they know it, but not long afterwards, in AD 156, Polycarp, their beloved minister and bishop, was to be martyred by being burnt to death in the persecution. Yet his death inspired generations of Christians to come.

There were some games being held in Smyrna and wreaths of victory were being handed out to those who had won. The city was crowded with people from all the areas around. Someone in the crowd wanting more excitement, called ‘away with the atheists – away with the traitors to the empire. Let Polycarp be searched for!’ He was known for his strength of witness and for his leadership of the church. He was held in high regard by the city officials, but such was the pressure of the mob that the old man who had led the church following the death of John was dragged through the streets and brought before the magistrates. The police pleaded with him to say ‘Caesar is Lord’ and the magistrate begged that he acknowledge Rome as divine.

But Polycarp refused. The Proconsul begged him, ‘Swear and I will release you; curse Christ!’, and the old man, drawing himself up with straight back, said ‘Eighty and six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong: how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’ The crowd shouted to curse Christ or die. Polycarp elected to die. Very quickly dried branches were heaped into a bonfire around a huge stake. Ropes were brought to bind Polycarp, but he told them to take the ropes away” ‘He who gives me power to endure the fire will grant me to remain in the flames.’

The crowd shouted for the fire to be brought and Polycarp raised his arms to heaven and said, ‘Oh Lord God Almighty, through whom we have received our knowledge of thee, I bless thee that thou hast deemed me worthy to this day and hour that I might take a portion among the martyrs in the cup of Christ to the resurrection to eternal life. May I today be welcome before thy face.’ The fire burnt up brightly and those that were there insist that a wind blew the flames outward so that for some time he stood there in the midst not burning but shining like gold, and a fragrance filled the theatre.

As John’s revelation circulated around all the churches, each received a special message. To the church at Ephesus was the word of faithfulness, and to the church at Smyrna was the word of encouragement in time of suffering. The book strengthened Christians wherever it was read throughout the ancient world and is always read most and loved most by those who are suffering most.

Endnotes:

1. Revelation 1:12-18
2. 1 Corinthians 15:32
3. Acts 19:8-10
4. Revelation 2:1-7
5. Revelation 2:9-10

For personal reading

Theme: The Lord of the churches 1

Monday: Jesus appears to John (Revelation 1:9-18)
Tuesday: The church is established at Ephesus (Acts 19:1-20)
Wednesday: The message to the church at Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7)
Thursday: How to test the spirits (1 John 4:1-6)
Friday: Counteracting the teaching of the Nicolaitans (Romans 6:1-14)
Saturday: The message to the church at Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11)
Sunday: How the believers are rich (James 2:1-13)

For group study

Topic: Jesus speaks to Ephesus and Smyrna

1. What is the purpose of the book of Revelation?
2. How was it greeted in the first century?
3. What do we learn about false teaching from 1 John 4 and Romans 6?
4. What can we learn from the letter to the church at Ephesus?
5. What can we learn from the letter to the church at Smyrna?

Tuesday, 10th February, 2009, 1:53 pm | Bible Studies