The letters to the churches that occupy the early chapters of the book of Revelation are a study in nuanced assessment. The Lord Jesus, who speaks in these letters embedded in an apocalyptic neighborhood, metes out both praise and rebuke in roughly equal measure. Not unusually, the reader is stunned by how severe and encouraging the dominical voice can be with regard to the same listening church.
Thyatira, for example:
Now 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): Only hold on to what you have until I come. To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— ‘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. I will also give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The italicized words come from the second psalm, which contains a message from YHWH to his human delegate on Zion that is routinely quoted by the New Testament and early Christian literature as an anticipatory description of Christ’s dominion over the nations. (more…)
Canter Bridge 