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Church history according to Jesus. According to Revelation 1:11, the book was written to seven congregations in Asia, modern Turkey. For 2,000 years scholars have wondered why such an important message would be sent to these churches since they werent even the most important of their day, let alone now. True, Ephesus was a leading city of the time, but the church there was small and so were the others. Why wasnt the book written to the Church in Rome, for example? Surely the Lord knew that Rome would be the capital of Christianity for much of church history, the perfect addressee for such a timeless message. The answer lies in the realization that the letters of chapters 2 and 3 have a representative as well as a specific purpose. They can actually be read with four levels of application.
Wheres Smyrna?
Today a prosperous city called Izmir, third largest in Turkey, stands where ancient Smyrna once was. In an incident that clearly displayed the Lords sense of humor while emphasizing the point of the letter, we saw prominent signs on a freeway exit just outside Izmir pointing to Smyrna. Thinking we had found the ancient site, I quickly pulled off. But at the bottom of the short exit ramp was a T intersection with no indication as to which way we should turn. And there were no more signs pointing the way to Smyrna. After an hour of driving back and forth searching in both directions, I gave up and drove on. I didnt get the point till later after describing the event to our Turkish travel agent. He told me the sign points to where Symrna was. Theres no trace of Smyrna today. The church of Smyrna is in heaven. The third letter was written to Pergamus, modern Bergama (Rev 2:12-17) and looks forward to the 4th century. Our Lord instructed the Disciples to go into all the world (Matt 28:19-20), but in Pergamus the world came into the church. In the 4th century the Edict of Milan made Christianity legal and ultimately the official religion of the Empire. The Babylonian religions headquartered in Pergamus (where Satan has his throne) were merged into Christianity and pagan festivals became Christian holidays. The Feasts of Saturnalia and Ishtar became Christmas and Easter. This explains why such pagan symbols as the Yule log and evergreen tree, which symbolized the sun dying and being born again at the winter solstice, are associated with Christmas, while fertility symbols like rabbits and eggs are connected with Easter. Ishtar was the Babylonian goddess of fertility. The impressive ruins on a hill 1000 feet above the surrounding valleys are markedly pagan with remains of great temples to Roman gods and emperors and again only faint traces of the church that was there.
Mixed Marriage
Its my belief that the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamus have all disappeared, symbolically and in reality. But the marriage of pagan and Christian beliefs in Pergamus produced 4 offspring that all survive to this day and are represented by the four remaining letters. More next time.