The AMI QT Devotionals from May 22-28 are written by Phillip Chen, college pastor intern at Church of Southland. Philip, a graduate of University of California, San Diego, is currently studying at Talbot School of Theology. He is married to Esther.
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS FOR TODAY
Revelation 2:18-28 (ESV): “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works,23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. 24 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. 25 Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule[c] them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.28 And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
One of the highest virtues of society these days is tolerance. A popular phrase “You do you” perpetuates this line of thinking: basically, this phrase means that you should do whatever you want to do, think however you want to think, and be whoever you want to be without fear of judgment. While I get the sentiment of this phrase, I also feel that it has spiraled out of control, particularly in our social landscape where tolerance is highly prized. Several months ago, a famous NBA player Kyrie Irving came out to say that he believed the earth was flat—what a shocking statement! The more shocking fact was that many came to his defense and said that if he believed it were true, then no one should be able to discredit his beliefs. Absolute truth has been discarded as something in the past, and relativism seems to be the popular belief that society holds to now.
Even within the church, there has been shifting views, where absolute truth that has always been held in the past have started to be questioned and discarded. Because tolerance has been celebrated as an important pillar of our society, oftentimes it can be mistakenly equated to love: love is tolerance, tolerance is love. Today’s passage shows us that the church in Thyatira struggled with this as well. Jesus commends this church for being full of love, faith, service and patient endurance. They are fulfilling their purpose as a church that extends love. However, when we look at the indictment against this church, we realize that they have been tolerating sin and wrong teaching; this teaching spread quickly, leading many astray. And this is all for the sake of love—and Jesus is not pleased with that.
This same struggle exists within the church today. Do we need to open the door wider (to the point of potentially sacrificing sound doctrine) so that we can love more people and give them a chance to come into the kingdom of God? Do we need to sacrifice love to hold true to the sound doctrine, guarding the faith and keeping it pure? It’s interesting to see that the church in Ephesus was faithful to sound doctrine and was zealous in chasing out heretical teaching—but they struggled with love. On the other hand, the church in Thyatira was the exact opposite: it was commended for its love and hospitality, but condemned for its tolerance of wrong teaching. One thing I appreciate about the “radical middle” approach is that one doesn’t need to be sacrificed for the other. We must earnestly pursue love – loving one another and loving those who believe differently from us—but we must also earnestly pursue faithful teaching, maintaining sound doctrine and purity in the faith, not tolerating sin and causing others to stumble. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do, and I believe this struggle won’t end any time soon. However, our Lord encourages us: “hold fast until I come.” May our churches seek to love others and reach out to a decaying world while still holding to sound doctrine! May we be people who hold love and truth near to our hearts as we seek to minister to this world!
Prayer: Father God, at times it seems so difficult to hold to the truth of Your Word when the world seems to reject what You have spoken. Although we desire to love people so that more and more may enter into Your Kingdom, we realize how difficult it may be to speak the truth in love. Help us in our weakness. Help us to be people who pursue love while we pursue truth. Enable us persevere to the end, even when our message goes against popular opinion. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Deuteronomy 22
Richard Neibuhr, in his book Christ and Culture, outlines the several different approaches people have taken to reconcile how Christians ought to interact with their culture: views range from “culture is evil” to “culture is ultimately good.” It a difficult challenge, as many of these views have been regarded as insufficient; and this has been a hot topic for the church for many generations. We definitely face this same challenge today. In today’s passage, Jesus speaks to the church in Pergamum, which was a place riddled with immorality and idolatry.
The church in Smyrna was going through tribulation and poverty, yet God recognized how spiritually rich this church was—in fact, no indictment was given towards this church. The Greek word Smyrna can be derived from the Hebrew word marar, which means “to be bitter.” One commentator writes that “the trials in life can make one bitter or better.” Oftentimes, persecution and poverty act as the tipping point for us, causing us to become bitter at God or to better appreciate God. As this church went through trials and tribulations, Jesus’ encouragement to them is this: “Be faithful unto death.”
John was writing this to the church of Ephesus that was planted out of an awesome fear of the Lord. There was a great display of God’s greatness and power and might, which led to true repentance. Acts 19 tells us that the Holy Spirit moved so mightily in their midst that even handkerchiefs that Paul touched were used for the healing of people—these were people of incredible faith and incredible expectation. The accounts go on that the seven sons of Sceva tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus as some sort of ritual or sorcery. Basically, they were trying to copycat what Paul was doing but to no avail. It says that they were overcome by evil spirits, and most importantly, when people saw this and heard of this occurrence, there was a great fear that fell upon them. People repented to the degree that they came and confessed their sins; not only that, they brought their books of sorcery and occult, and burned it.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see Jesus face to face? There was a popular song in the early 2000’s by MercyMe called “I Can Only Imagine” that poses this very question. What would it be like to see Jesus face to face? What would we do in His presence? In today’s passage, we see that John is terrified and falls at His feet as though dead. This is not a unique reaction, as many others who saw Jesus face to face on this earth fell down in fear and trembling. Take a moment to re-read the description that John gives Jesus. Imagine if you were in John’s shoes: how would you react? I believe the sheer vastness and awesomeness of our Lord would compel us to also fall down in fear.
When I was in college, I loved to plan for the future. Rather than just thinking about it, I took it to another level: I made an Excel sheet with major milestones that I would accomplish as I reached certain ages—such as when I would get married and when I would have my first child. Whereas most people try to have a 5-year plan or a 10-year plan, I decided to—just for fun—plan the rest of my life out. I look back and chuckle at my naïve and immature self because I understand now that I can’t plan out my life so neatly— it won’t ever work out the way I plan it. As I came to this realization, another realization came to mind – God has a plan, and His plan always comes to fruition.
As a teenager, I had a bad habit of leaving the lights on when I left a room—and my mom would constantly remind me of this. I certainly heard her say it—in fact, I can still hear it in the back of my head—and definitely understood why it was important to do so. But for some reason, it was in one ear and out the other, and I continued to forget to turn the lights off. In our passage today, John is writing this letter to the seven churches in Asia with specific instructions from the Lord. He starts out by reminding them that it’s not only important to hear these instructions, but to keep them. On a larger scale, we also must be reminded that it’s not only important to hear God’s Word, but also to earnestly obey what He has commanded us.
Paul began his letter to the Corinthians with a benediction (literally means “a good word”) of grace: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 1:2); and now ends with a benediction of grace. His message begins with grace, the middle is full of grace, and again ends with grace.
The AMI QT Devotionals from May 15-21 are provided by Pastor Barry Kang, who heads Symphony Church in Boston. Barry, a graduate of Stanford University and Fuller Theological Seminary (M.Div.), is married to Sunny (an amazing worship leader, chef and math wizard). They are the proud parents of Caleb and Micah.
One of my seminary professors refused to give exams in his class because he had been scarred by all exams and tests he’d endured in his own education. Even though I did fairly well with exams, his class was still one of my favorites in the seminary! Few of us like the idea of exams: We delay going to the doctor; we dread what we will hear from our auto mechanics. There is even a school of thought in education that wants to eliminate high-stakes testing (i.e. state wide exams) in our public schools. But we know that—even if we don’t like it—exams at some level are necessary. They are necessary because sometimes we get off-course (even if we don’t want to acknowledge it). That’s why we need to check where we are and figure out where to go from there.
Humble yourself and God will exalt you (James 4:10); the first shall be last (Matthew 20:16); free from sin, slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:18); live through dying (John 12:24); lose life to find it (Matthew 10:39); when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10)—the New Testament has many seeming paradoxes. Culturally and societally speaking, they don’t always make sense, but spiritually—they make all the sense in the world.