Wednesday, November 2, 2022

 

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Psalms 5; 6

Nehemiah 9:26-38

Revelation 2:1-7

Observance: All Souls

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance.

It is to our benefit that we will be able to get through this first section of Revelation before Advent kicks off and we move to the new lectionary. This is because, in the church at large, we like to spend a lot of time on the epistles of St Paul. Sometimes we might look at the epistles of Saints Peter or John. But almost never do we get to the letters written by our Lord. Seven churches; seven epistles from Jesus. Each has an important message not just for the church to whom the letter was originally written, but for ourselves as well.

Today’s instruction, for the church at Ephesus, sounds a lot like what John wrote in his second letter: the church is strong in the truth, but weak in love. What Jesus does better than John is when he wraps around afterwards reaffirming how important truth is: “Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” Just who these “Nicolaitans” were exactly is still under debate, but there are two major tenets of the heresy which are consistent across all historical accounts: firstly, that they believed that the cross of Christ removed the need for keeping to any moral law (also called “antinomianism”); and secondly, that old chestnut, sexual immorality, specifically, sexual orgies during communion.

Just like the church at Ephesus, we too are groaning under the burden of false teachers, sexual immorality amongst believers and the denial of Biblical moral law. The Lord Jesus (and remember, this is Jesus in His risen and ascended form, with eyes of fire, a thundering voice and a sword coming from His mouth) commends those who hold firm to His truth. He knows how much we suffer under those who would twist His words in order to glorify themselves and excuse sin. But He wants us to remember the love we had at first. All the spiritual know-how in the universe is of no use if we do not have love (1 Cor 13). Jesus is “He who loves us”. He came to bear our sins because He loves us so much, and He gives us these words of encouragement out of the bottomless stores of love that He keeps in the heavenly places just for us. Truth and love, two commandments from the first letter of Jesus: but the greatest of these is love.