Love vs. Compromise: Letters from Revelation 2

So while I was on vacation this past week I was reading a really good book called "Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys that Should Be)" by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. I'm not trying to promote the book (even though it's really good) and we can save the emergent discussion for another day (if you're REALLY interested in knowing you can message me on Facebook or email me); I'm just setting the backdrop here. In the very last chapter of the book, Kevin talks about two of the letters written to churches in Revelation (For those of you who didn't know, Revelation isn't all prophesy and all that jazz. The first 3 chapters are letters to seven churches; commending some and scolding others.).

In Rev. 2 there are to churches I'd like to talk about, The Loveless Church (this is what my version of the Bible calls it, it might be different in yours) and The Compromising Church (their real names are Ephesus and Pergamos respectively).

I think the youth of today's generation have a stereotypical viewing of the church as it is in today's America: stifling, dogmatic, anti-fun, and judgemental. These are the things the church in Ephesus (the loveless church) was being condemned for. While they were teaching the correct doctrine, they weren't being loving to their fellow brother or sister in Christ or to the sinners in their area.

Timeout: there was a group of people in the area of Ephesus called the Nicolaitans, who can basically be described as "do-as-you-please" people. They had no moral law or conscience it seemed. Okay...Time-in.

John (the author of Revelation) thanks the Ephesians for not following the ways of the Nicolaitans, which he "also hates" (v. 6 NKJV). But he tells them that they have forgotten their "first love". At first glance this might not strike a chord because it doesn't say out right what their "first love" was. I believe this refers to love in general. In Ephesians 1 (a previous letter written to the church in Ephesus by the Apostle Paul) Paul thanks the church of Ephesus for being loving. But it seems in the years between the letters of Ephesians and John's letter in Revelation that the people have become cold hearted and apathetic to the feelings of others.

I think this is how the youth of my generation sees the church: the doctrine itself is fine, but the way it's delivered is the problem. That it's not a loving message of repentence, but one of judgment and fire and brimstone. I'm not going to say that there isn't a church like that, but I am going to tell you that there are churches that are not like that. The church I attend, Mt Vernon Church, does a good job overall of being loving towards others.

But there is a flipside. When do we become so loving, that we compromise our own beliefs to keep from offending anyone? This is the problem the church in Pergamos.

John's letter tells us that he commends the Pergamos church for being faithful through times of trial (one of their own was martyred, a man by the name of Antipas), but he's got a beef with them also. He says that they have people in their "congregation" who believed in the doctrine of Balaam (in the Old Testament is the story of Balaam and his talking donkey. However if you look more in the OT, you will find Balaam is one of the advisors to the Pharaoh of Egypt and he suggested that the Pharaoh enslave the Jewish people, God's People. A no-no.). Again the Nicolaitans come into play in this letter; this time John is saying that they have followed the way of the Nicolaitans and they need to repent.

Clearly the church at Pergamos took the "love" too far and compromised what they already had been taught by God and His followers.

I hope you got through all this and got something out of it, haha. But if you get one thing out of this post get this: Don't compromise what the Bible tells you to do in order to not offend someone. God would rather them be offended than you disobey Him. God bless you guys, until next time.