Tag Archives: compromise

The letter to Thyatira: That woman Jezebel!

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lettersIn writing to the church in Thyatira, Jesus talks about a false prophetess in the church there, a woman that he calls Jezebel. That wouldn’t have been her real name. This was a reference to the Old Testament queen that tried to impose a foreign religion on the Israelites.

This Jezebel was also promoting a false religion. Thyatira was a town with strong labor unions; each of these unions aligned itself with a pagan god, holding meetings in the temple of their patron. Christians had to choose between participating in idolatry or committing professional suicide.

What appears to have been going on here was that this woman, this self-proclaimed prophetess, was teaching the Christians that it was all right for them to participate fully in the activities of the trade guilds in Thyatira. The argument would be that it was necessary professionally, that these religious rites were merely “social rites” which had no meaning. Possibly she would have argued, as did some Corinthians before her, that since false gods aren’t really gods, Christians do nothing wrong by participating in their “worship.” This was an issue which had troubled the church in Corinth, and Paul had taught them in no uncertain terms that accommodation was not the answer. Christians cannot “play” at worshiping other gods; worship is for our God and for him alone. Worship activities, even when directed to false beings, are not mere actions; they affect our hearts, our very being. Participating in the worship of false gods is unfaithfulness to the true God. It is spiritual immorality, religious adultery.

(Letters From The Lamb, pp. 100-101)

Again, there can be no compromise between the church and the world. There can be no divided loyalty. Even when our professions or prosperity are at stake, we must choose in favor of God.

The Letter to Pergamum: Sexual sin and religious compromise

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lettersJesus tells the church in Pergamum that they have people there teaching Balaam’s doctrine. You remember Balaam, don’t you? The one whose donkey talked to him? He was also the one that led the Midianite women to seduce the Israelite men as part of the worship of their gods.

In the book, I discuss the connection between Balaam and Pergamum:

The Jews had long used Balaam as an example of false teachers who will say what is convenient in order to get paid, as an example of religious compromise, and as an example of the dangers of not taking immorality seriously. Jesus could refer to Balaam here, and his readers would know exactly what he was talking about. The worship of many pagan gods also involved sexual immorality, so the parallels were easy to see. Seemingly, the Nicolaitans were guilty of teaching the same compromise with the world, the same easing of moral restrictions, the same religious infidelity. This is the sin of accommodation, of giving in to the pressures of a society that is away from God. The pressure to conform would have been strong, especially in a city where many of the jobs would have depended on the good graces of the Roman government. Civil servants don’t tend to make good revolutionaries. People in Pergamum would have wanted to keep the emperor happy, even if it meant falsely worshiping him as a god.

(Letters From The Lamb, pp. 82-83)

While the enticements offered may not be the same, the temptation to compromise with the world is just as strong today as it was then. We may not be worshiping pagan gods or performing ritualistic sex acts, but each time that we split our loyalty between God and something else, we are falling into the trap that Balaam set for the Israelites.

In what ways do you see Christians being pressured to compromise today?

The letter to Ephesus: Compromise on the horizon

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lettersThe first letter in Revelation chapter 2 is the letter to the church in Ephesus. Ephesus competed with Pergamum and Smyrna for the bragging rights as most important city in the province of Asia. It was also a center for emperor worship. In our book, I wrote:

The emperor cult was prominent in Ephesus during the first century. Archaeologists have unearthed an especially large temple to Domitian, the emperor who banished John to Patmos. The temple was designed to establish Ephesus as the world center of worship for Domitian, featuring a 27-foot-tall statue of the emperor which was visible by all who arrived by sea or by land. The head and forearm of the statue are on display today in the museum at Ephesus; the forearm alone is six feet long. In this city where the Roman ruler was worshiped as the god of gods, any who refused to say “Domitian is Lord” would run the risk of imprisonment and death. We read in the book of Acts that Paul almost lost his life in Ephesus at the hands of the supporters of the goddess Diana; now the Ephesian Christians were in danger from worshipers of another false god.

(Letters From The Lamb, pp.47-48)

It was this worship of the Roman Caesar that was going to lead Christ’s church to an inevitable collision with the Roman authorities. Some would have argued that Christians could pledge loyalty to the Roman empire and still remain true to Christ. But this attitude of compromise was deadly, at least in a spiritual sense. The Ephesian church would resist this false teaching, but at a high price. We’ll look at that in the next post.