Revelation 2

Ephesus was one of the largest and most important cities in the Roman Empire—and home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World: the Temple of Artemis. Paul spent three years in Ephesus helping start the church. He was so successful that the Christian movement hurt the local idol-making business. Business people started a protest that ended in a riot, which forced Paul to leave the city. The river that once connected the city port to the Aegean Sea gradually silted over. Ephesus is an abandoned ruin and a tourist site.

It’s not clear if the writer is talking about the church’s love for God or for one another. Scholars debate it. Some say it may not matter in many cases because people who truly love God will love others too.

It’s unclear if Jesus is threatening to punish the church soon or later, on Judgment Day.

“Nicolaitans” may refer to a group of Christians with religious ideas that most other Christians rejected. One theory is that Nicolas, mentioned in Acts 6:5, led the movement. Nicolas, along with Stephen, was one of seven men the original disciples of Jesus chose to help them by feeding impoverished fellow believers in Jerusalem.

Smyrna, today the Turkish city of Izmir, was a well-protected and easily defended inland port city. It was about a 40-mile (70-km) walk north of Ephesus, on Turkey’s west coast.

“Second death” refers to souls getting pitched into the lake of fire where they die and stay dead forever (Revelation 20:14).

The wealthy city of Pergamum, a day’s walk from Turkey’s northwestern seacoast, was famous for its medical center and its huge library of more than 200,000 works. The ruins are near the modern city of Bergama.

It’s unclear how Pergamum was the host of Satan’s throne. Some scholars guess the writer was talking about the many pagan religions in the city. There are ruins of many pagan shrines and temples there. But some scholars guess the writer was talking about emperor worship because Pergamum was an important headquarters of the Roman occupation of the region. Emperor worship was a problem for Christians because they refused to worship the emperor who had the power to execute them. Some emperors, such as Nero (AD 37-68) and Domitian (AD 51-96), did just that.

There’s no indication who Antipas was. Fair guess it wasn’t Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee who beheaded John the Baptist and tormented Jesus the morning of the Crucifixion. Emperor Caligula banished him in about AD 39 to what is now France. That was perhaps about a decade after the crucifixion of Jesus.

There’s no record of Balaam, a pagan prophet, giving this advice to Balak, king of Moab in what is now the country of Jordan. They show up together in Numbers 22–23, where Balak hires Balaam to put a curse on the approaching Jews led by Moses. The Jews get lured into sex sins in Moab (Numbers 25) and Moses later blames it on Balaam’s advice (Numbers 31:16).

It’s unclear what the writer means by the white stone. It could symbolize a vote of “not guilty.” Jurors used white stones to cast a “not guilty” vote for a defendant, and black stones to vote “guilty.” Or the stones might point to a legend about jewels falling from the sky along with manna, during the Jewish exodus out of Egypt. It could also symbolize a ticket into heaven, since people in ancient times often used marked stones to get into a feast or a celebration. There are many other educated guesses that scholars have made.

Kings occasionally gave selected subjects new names to reflect something about that person. Jesus gave Simon the new name “Peter,” which means “rock.” Peter’s faith and preaching became the bedrock upon which the church was built. His sermon on the Day of Pentecost, some two months after the crucifixion of Jesus, produced several thousand converts to the Christian movement (Acts 2).

The city of Thyatira, in northwestern Turkey, was the hometown of Lydia, an apparently rich woman who sold expensive purple cloth. When she was living in Philippi, she became a Christian through Paul’s ministry. She invited him and his colleagues to use her home to start the local church. Her hometown was famous for its cloth-making industry and its guilds of dyers.

Eyes like fire and feet like polished bronze come from a prophecy in Daniel 10:6. The reference to bronze would have caught the attention of people in Thyatira because the city was famous for its guild of bronze workers.

“Jezebel” is probably just a code name for the leader of a heretical movement. Jezebel from Jewish history was King Ahab’s wife from Phoenicia, in what is now Lebanon. She tried to kill all God’s prophets in Israel and replace them with her prophets from another religion (1 Kings 18:13). She became infamous for her idolatry and witchcraft (2 Kings 9:22).

Prophecy plucked from the line of a poem, Psalm 2:9.

“Morning star” was Jewish code for the Messiah. The idea seems to have come from Numbers 24:17, and the promise that a star will rise from among the Jewish people. Some associate the morning star with Venus, which rises in the sky a few hours before the sun. Some Roman armies carried emblems of Venus on their banners, to symbolize their strength. Julius Caesar claimed to descend from the goddess Venus. His banners called her the goddess “who conquers.”