Strong
Church/Weak Church 12
Smyrna, to me, is one of the most
interesting churches in the Bible. Like Daniel, nothing negative is recorded
about it. I am quite sure it had weaknesses, for it was human and everything
human is faulty, but none of them are recorded in the few Scripture verses that
discuss the church. For this reason, there will be no Weak Church/Smyrna post,
only today’s post about its strengths.
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| The Agora of Smyrna circa 500 BC |
Smyrna was a substantial city in
Turkey along the Aegean Sea. It rivaled Ephesus, which was located about 40
miles away, in trade until the harbor in Ephesus silted over and the rivalry
declined. Smyrna was originally founded as a Greek colony, and later passed
into Roman hands in the New Testament era. Although it was ravaged during the
Middle Ages, it still exists today as the Turkish city of Izmir. It is huge,
slightly bigger than Chicago, in fact. To this day, its most famous resident
was Homer, the Greek poet. Homer probably wrote the two most famous poems in
history, The Iliad and The Odyssey, from a cave along the river in Smyrna about
800 years before Christ.
Religiously, in the first century it
cultivated the typical pagan deities of the day, with some extra-curricular
worship of Homer thrown in one the side. Included in this was a very active
Dionysian cult. Dionysus, also called Bacchus, was the god of alcohol and sex
from whom we derive the term for a wild party, a bacchanalia. (Grasping this
informs as well our understanding of the problems of the church at Corinth
too.) This god so embraced by Smyrna, supposedly resurrected from the dead, is
given special attention in John’s short epistle when John emphasizes Christ’s
own real resurrection in Revelation 2.8.
In fact, here is the entire brief
scriptural record on the church:
Revelation 2:8–11
(KJV 1900)
8 And unto the
angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last,
which was dead, and is alive;
9 I know thy
works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the
blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue
of Satan.
10 Fear none of
those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you
into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
11 He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh
shall not be hurt of the second death.
In these few verses I see two
strengths of the church at Smyrna.
Notice, they served the Lord even though
they were poor. Their poverty is mentioned specifically, drawing attention to
something that so often prevents people from serving God. It bears repeating,
there is no negative spiritual mention about this church which rather shoots a
hole in the prosperity gospel theology, amongst other things.
Beyond that, spiritually speaking, poverty
engenders two very helpful attitudes on the part of the Christian. First,
poverty brings us to realize what our true riches are. When Jonah lost
everything a man could lose, including light, he saw an unvarnished value in
the mercy of God. Money and the material things of this life so often cloud our
vision, and when that fog is lifted we see how wonderful are our relationships,
how deep our eternal spiritual blessings in Christ.
Corporately, churches need money to
operate. Buildings and staff and ministry are expensive. But many a church can
and has focused too much on their income stream, valuing people based on what
they give, equating blessing with good offerings, pushing giving at the expense
of other spiritual graces, or desiring the things money can do more than the
things the Holy Spirit can do. Smyrna was blessedly free from such temptations
because it was broke.
Secondly, poverty brings us to the place
of dependence upon Christ. Without question, the weakest church of the seven
discussed in Revelation is the church
at Laodicea. Not coincidentally, it was a very wealthy church. Jesus spoke
right to the heart of the matter when He said, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God (Mark 19.24). It was the rich young
ruler who thought he needed nothing, and people/churches who do not need anything
from God exercise little faith in Him.
If your church has millions of dollars
coming in, or a healthy amount socked
away in a capital improvements fund count
it a blessing. But if you have neither of those there is no need to count it a
curse. Poverty in a church can be a wonderful blessing.
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| Izmir, Turkey, present day The Agora is on the right side of the foreground. |
The second primary strength I see in the
church at Smyrna was that they stayed right through persecution. Along with
poverty, tribulation is specifically mentioned in Revelation 2.9. This persecution took verbal form in their
fellow Jews who denied Jesus was the messiah. I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and
I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the
synagogue of Satan. These Christ rejectors may have been Jews ethnically,
but any Jew who turns his back on Jesus is in some sense not considered a Jew
by God.
Romans 2:28–29
28 For he is not a
Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in
the flesh:
29 But he is a
Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the
spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Romans 9:6
6 Not as though
the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are
of Israel:
This verbal persecution from the Jews
toward the church in Smyrna later manifested itself as physical persecution, in
trial, prison, and martyrdom. Fear none
of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of
you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days:
be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life (Revelation
2.10)
In Robine Lane Foxe’s massive 1986
work on the era, Pagans and Christians, he
tells story after story of those days. I will share just one with you. Sitting
in the church at Smyrna that day the letter from John was read to them was a 27
year old young man named Polycarp. He listened eagerly to the Apostle’s message
for that apostle, John, had personally won him to Christ. John became his
mentor, training him for the ministry. In fact, within just a few short years
after he first heard Revelation 2 read
he became the pastor of the church at Smyrna. I am sure that passage of Holy
Writ was exceeding precious to him and to the people there.
Polycarp became very influential in
his generation, the first generation to claim Christianity without anyone alive
who had actually met Jesus. Polycarp stood loyally for the authority and
authenticity of Scripture, and for apostolic theology. He refused the bishop of
Rome when that bishop attempted to assert control over the church at Smyrna, an
example in the historical record similar to what I spoke of regarding Ephesus
last week.
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| S. Polycarpus engraving by Michael Burghers circa 1685 |
As an old man, after having served
Christ faithfully and well for decades as the pastor there he was brought
before the authorities during a time of persecution. Just as John warned, the
Jews were his most vigorous accusers. He was found guilty of being a Christian,
and was burned at the stake with faggots of wood contributed by the Jews. And
he went willingly, untied. I am sure he was thinking of John and of John’s
words to his church written some sixty years before.
Revelation 2:10–11
10 Fear none of
those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you
into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
11 He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh
shall not be hurt of the second death.
At eighty-six years of age, Polycarp,
longtime pastor of the church at Smyrna, convert and disciple of the Apostle
John, was given one last chance to recant. His reply? “Eighty and six years
have I served Him, and He never did me any injury; how then can I blaspheme my
Saviour and King?”
They were made of stern stuff in
Smyrna.
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