Ephesus -- the Strenuous Church
A. Mackennal, D. D. Revelation 2:1-7 To the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things said he that holds the seven stars in his right hand… Ephesus is the type of a strenuous Church. There is something singularly masculine in the first part of the description. "I know thy works" — that is, thine achievements; not thy desires and purposes and aspirations, not even thy doings, but thy deeds. This Church in its severe self-discipline affords a welcome contrast to the easily-excited populace amid whom they lived, rushing confusedly into the theatre and shouting for two hours, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." The patience of the Church is twice men tioned; the second time it is patience not as a feature of the workman, but the patience of him who can suffer, and suffer in silence. And this virtue has a threefold delineation — patience, endurance, fortitude. "Thou hast patience, and thou didst bear for My name's sake, and thou hast not grown weary." There is another mark of the masculine character in Ephesus, a noble intolerance of evil — "thou canst not bear bad men." And with this intolerance is the power to discriminate character, the clear judgment which cannot be deceived — "thou didst try them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false." There is no surer mark of a masculine nature than this keen insight into pretentiousness, and fidelity of rebuke. Then comes the exposure of the great defect of Ephesus. "I have against thee that thou hast left that love which thou hadst at the first." It is love in its largest sense which the Church once had and now has lost; the love of God animating piety undoubtedly, but no less certainly the love of men making service sweet. Nor is it the feeling alone which has changed, it is not that love as a sentiment is lost; but love in its far reach has gone, kindliness and tender consideration and disregard of self, the grace that suffers long and is kind, that beareth all things, hopeth all things, believeth all things. The toilsomeness, the endurance, the stern self-judgment, the keen discrimination of character, are obvious; but the spirit that rises above toil or sweetens toil, the grace to woo and wed, has fled. We can understand the history only too well. Life has many sore trials, none sorer than this — that virtues which are unexercised die out, and that the circumstances which call for some virtues and give occasion for their development seem to doom others to extinction. The Christian character cannot live by severity alone. There were two demands which the Church at Ephesus had forgotten — the demand for completeness of Christian character, never more urgent than when the times are making us one-sided; the demand of God Himself for the heart. There must be impulse in His people if they are to continue His people; there must be love in all who, not contented with doing "their works," desire to do the work of God. I. There is an obscured, a limited perception of the grace of Christ. "These things saith He that holdeth the seven stars," etc. A strenuous Lord for a strenuous Church; but also a Lord holding His manifold graces in reserve when He has to do with a reserved people. For the nurture of piety we need all that He will reveal to us of Himself, all that can endear Him, all that can startle us, all that can exalt His image. There is not a single channel by which Christ finds His way to the soul which should not be open to Him; a full Christ is needed for a full man and for a complete Church. II. The warning of the fifth verse must have been very surprising to the angel of the Ephesian Church. The Church seemed to be so efficient. Its works had been so hard, and yet they had been done. Its achieve-merits were patent. Especially its service in the cause of truth was conspicuous; the Church had not lost its zeal, its candour, its piercing vision. Ephesus warns us against the perils of the Puritan temper; it warns us also against the stoical temper, with its tendency to a not ignoble cynicism, of which some of our gravest leaders in literature have been the exponents. Puritanism plus love ham accomplished great things, and will do yet more; for a masculine tenderness is God's noblest gift to men. But Puritanism, when the first love is lost, drags on a sorrowful existence, uninfluential and unhappy; its only hope being the capacity for repentance, which, God be praised, has never failed it. Perhaps the most solemn part of the message is that in which the Lord Himself declares — "I am coming; I will shake thy candlestick out of its place." The Lord can do without our achievements, but not without love. He can supply gifts unendingly, can make the feeble as David; but if love be wanting He will shake the noblest into destruction, and remove them out of the way. There is one striking word immediately following this warning, a word of commendation; it is the only one of the messages in which a word of commendation does come in after the warning has been uttered, and it is a commendation of feeling. "But this thou hast, that thou hatest," etc. Hatred is hardly the feeling we should have expected to be commended: but it is feeling, and any feeling is better than apathy or stolidity. Where men can feel hatred, other feeling may come; love may come where men have not reduced themselves to machines. III. An altogether unexpected thing in the message to the Church at Ephesus is the promise with which it ends — "To him that overcometh," etc. In only two promises of the New Testament does this word "paradise" appear, with its suggestion of the primeval garden, where the father and mother of men wandered innocent and happy: in the promise made by the dying Jesus to the penitent thief, and here. The faithful men of Ephesus, stern-featured, with drawn brows, fighting on, knowing that their hearts are withering in the conflict, and yet not seeing how they can relax, are caught with a word. An image is presented to them which may break down even their self. control, and set them longing for the wondrous things God hath prepared for them that love Him. And this was exactly what Ephesus needed, although it was the one thing it had schooled itself to do without. Ephesus had too little of what so many have too much of — sensibility, passiveness, willingness to receive, to be made something of, to be quiet and let the Blessed One save them who had long been striving, and of late so ineffectually, to serve Him. Good as strenuousness is — and of human virtues it is among the chief — even better is the responsive spirit. When God is the giver, it is well for us to receive rather than to give. (A. Mackennal, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; WEB: "To the angel of the assembly in Ephesus write: "He who holds the seven stars in his right hand, he who walks among the seven golden lampstands says these things: