Posted by
Eutychus on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 3:03:58 PM
Among the letters to the seven churches in the opening chapters of Revelation, Jesus Christ has words of praise, but also words of warning for the church at Ephesus. He commends them for the fact they had suffered and yet endured persecution; they did not abide immoral behavior; and they took a stand for sound teaching, opposing apostasy and false teachers. Any evangelical congregation in our day would likely be pleased with such a commendation for standing firm in the faith.
But Jesus also communicates a word of warning. While acknowledging all they had done to defend the faith, even to the point of suffering for their position, nevertheless Jesus says they are deficient in a more important area: they had left their first love, namely, Himself.
The serious warning in the letter to the Ephesian church – the realization which on reflection should cause the contemporary church to take notice – is that it's possible to suffer for being a Christian, to be a stalwart defender of sound doctrine, an opponent of false teachers, a champion and example of moral living, an opponent of the influences which eat at the surrounding culture, and yet to completely miss the point. It's possible to give an appearance of being sound and solid on the outside, and yet to leave or neglect Christ. In the case of the Ephesian church by the time John was given the Revelation, they had gotten completely off track on the one thing that is most important to the church.
(For the full article, click here.)