Presented Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 17 Feb 2013,
by Captain Michael Ramsay
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by Captain Michael Ramsay
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I was at a prayer meeting earlier this week and the leader shared this story out of a devotional book that is often insightful and inspiring. He read:
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A retired gentleman from around here calls his adult son in Philadelphia one autumn day and says, “Your mom and I are getting a divorce. This has been fifty plus years of pure aggravation and I am done with it!”
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“What? Dad, you can’t!” replies the son.
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“I’ve had it and I am so upset. You just call your sister and tell her. I don’t walk to talk about it anymore. I am done with this.”
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The son calls his sister and he tell her everything that dad has just shared with him. She says, “They can’t do that! Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it right away.”
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She calls her dad, “Dad”, she says, “Don’t do anything hasty. My brother and I are both on the next flight from Philadelphia here to come there and talk to you and Mom. Don’t do anything until we get there.”
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Dad hangs up the phone and looks at his wife and says, “The kids are coming home for Thanksgiving and they are even paying for their own plane tickets…but what are we going to do about Christmas.”
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That little story was about a phone call to Philadelphia in the present day United States. Today’s pericope is about a letter to a different Philadelphia at a different time.
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This Philadelphia in the letter, as opposed to the one in the story, does anyone know where this Philadelphia is? This one isn’t in the US. This Philadelphia is near Ephesus. Last week I asked you where Ephesus is. Does anyone remember? It is in the Roman province of Asia, which is what present-day country? Turkey.
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Now this letter that is going to [the angel of the church of] Philadelphia is the sixth of seven letters mentioned to different churches in Asia here in the book of Revelation.
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Philadelphia is an interesting city. Philadelphia was founded c.140 BCE. It was know as the gateway [or the open door] to the East. It was named after its founder, Attalus II Philadelphus of Pergamum and was was founded with the intention for it to be a centre of missionary activity for the Hellenistic (Greek) culture into Asia.[1]
Philadelphia at the time of the writing of this letter is an important city in the Roman Empire and at various times has even had new names bestowed upon it to honour the Roman Emperor.[2] This area around Philadelphia is actually not unlike Vancouver Island or even California of our world today in that it is relatively prosperous compared to other regions of the empire, it is known for wine and grapes, and the area is somewhat prone to earthquakes and even volcanic activity. There was the great earthquake of 17 CE that, like the 1906 CE San Francisco earthquake and fire, did destroy most of the city. As a result the surrounding area was known as ‘the burnt land’ and a lot of the people lived in a bit of fear of the next big earthquake.[3] Philadelphia is an important city. It is a prosperous city but the population lives in a bit of fear of the next ‘big one’ that might hit.
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This is the city to which ‘John the Revelator’ is commanded in Verse 7 to write the letter we are looking at today. Now this letter is one of seven such letters that John was instructed to write to various Roman cities in the same province of Asia. These seven letters written to the various churches all have some basic features in common: each letter is addressed to an angel (even though John was asked specifically in 1:11 to address them to the churches); each letter mentions the city to which it is addressed; each one follows a prophetic messenger formula; each one contains a Christological ascription; followed by praise and a promise or blame and a threat; each one then has a call to obedience; and each one has an eschatological promise for the victors.[4]
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Some of the recipients of these seven letters fair better than others: Some good things are said about six of the seven churches (Revelation 2:2, 10, 13, 19; 3:4, 10). Some bad things are said about five or six of the seven churches but there is actually nothing bad said about the church in Philadelphia. They are a group – like our group here today, I presume.
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The church in Philadelphia is small and apparently weak but it is doing well: they are holding up well under pressure. This is quite something when we consider that most of the books in the New Testament letters written to address a variety of concerns in the various churches. This letter within a letter in Revelation 3 doesn’t mention any problems with those attending the church. They are doing quite well at following the Lord.
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Now when people are doing well at following the Lord, how does the Enemy feel about this? When we are faithfully bringing people to salvation so that they have somewhere to turn as their life falls apart, when we are faithfully bringing people to the comfort and protection of God, when we are faithfully pointing people to Jesus who is the one who can grant joy in the midst of suffering, when we are faithfully allowing His Spirit to lead others to His shelter in the middle of the storm, how does the Enemy feel about this?
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I know from personal experience when things are starting to go well as we are serving the Lord for his kingdom, that is when the Enemy attacks. He knows where we are weak and that is where he strikes. He is like a schoolyard bully. Along those lines I have some comics to share by Bill Waterson. Everyone here is familiar with Calvin and Hobbes, right? Calvin is a six-year-old boy and Hobbes is his stuffed tiger. Calvin is weak and, like the church of Philadelphia, he runs into some problems with bullying.
In much the same way that Moe is bullying Calvin here, the 1st Century Broad Street bullies of Philadelphia are picking on the church in their city. The Christian church in Philadelphia is quite small. It is in a large and prosperous Greek city in the Roman Empire whose citizens’ predominately worship traditional Greco-Roman idols and there is this other bully that is picking on them. This other bully is actually a group of bullies know as, in Verse 9, the ‘Synagogue of Satan’.
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Now the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ isn’t a street gang like the ‘Indian Posse’. It isn’t a motorcycle club like the ‘Hell’s Angel’s’. ‘Synagogue of Satan’ isn’t even a name that they give to themselves. It is more like an insult or a derogatory epitaph, like when a former US president lumped together three of his presumed adversaries as ‘the axis of evil’ – there never was any such ‘axis’, those countries weren’t even traditional allies; it was just a way of pointing out that the US doesn’t like those countries and to watch out because the Americans are reserving the right to invade and conquer them. It was a way to delineate, as that same president said, who is with us and who is against us. This is the same thing with the ‘Synagogue of Satan’.
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By ‘Synagogue of Satan’, Verse 9, John means, people “who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars.” This we need to know a little bit about. We know that God created the whole world (Genesis 1-2). We know that as early as Genesis 12:3, God promises that the whole world will be blessed (by Jesus) through Abraham. We know that all of history points to Jesus as the Christ. The people of Israel know this as much as anyone but when Jesus actually comes the people of Israel are divided. Some accept Jesus as Lord – these are the people that today we call ‘Christians’. Most of the New Testament refers to Christians as ‘Saints’ and John in his letter here calls them the ‘true Jews’ or the ‘real Jews’ because they are the ones who embrace the Jewish Messiah. These real Jews, Saints, the Christians are the ones who acknowledge that God has done and is doing what God promised to do all along and they are the ones who choose to experience His joy in the midst of the real tribulations of this world, like those in the church in Philadelphia.
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When Jesus came, the real Jews, the Saints, the Christians, they set aside a lot of their old traditional cultural ways such as animal sacrifices, and worship at the temple, and various dietary laws because that was what they were doing in order to get ready for Jesus’ arrival; now that he has come they no longer need those things. Like this week, we set up the tables for the Lenten lunches on Thursday; Sylvia organized it. She got together all the plates and cutlery, and Stephen physically cleaned and arranged the tables and chairs in the gym and we put out tablecloths and organized the corps here to accommodate the luncheon. Now when the lunch was over, we didn’t leave the tables set out in our gymnasium with all the plates and cutlery upon them; we didn’t leave the corps like that. We have floor hockey with the youth on Fridays and basketball with the RCMP on Wednesdays among other outreaches so leaving everything set up for a lunch that has already happened is not only pointless but it gets in the way of real, practical, everyday ministry. That is the same with the old Israelite traditions; so, as Jesus has already come it is pointless to follow all of those Old Testament procedures, they are fulfilled now. The lunch is complete; it is time to put that stuff away. This is what the real Jews, the Saints, the Christians, realized.
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This next part is important. The ‘Synagogue of Satan’, the people who people “who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars” – they actually realized this too. Today, nobody follows the traditions of the old Israelite religion. They can’t because Jesus has already come and rose again. The lunch has already been served. You can’t eat it again. It is finish. The ‘Synagogue of Satan’ of the 1st Century and the Jews of today no longer practice the old Israelite traditions either.
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Today we might call the spiritual descendents of this ‘Synagogue of Satan’, ‘practitioners of the Jewish faith’ –well, I wouldn’t actually recommend that you call someone of the Jewish faith a member of the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ – that might not go over so well. Some of the reasons that John uses this harsh epitaph for them probably relate to how those Jews treated the real Jews, the Saints, the Christians at the time of the writing this letter in the decades after the resurrection of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Remember that they were all Israelites at first: both the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ Jews and the real Jews who are the Saints and the Christians. After Jesus rose from the grave and the ancient Israelite religion was fulfilled in Christ, the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ rebelled against this and at a meeting in the city of Jamnia they chose their own canon of Scripture and formulated their own new religion, which today we call Judaism. It was based upon, among other things, the so-called Eighteen Benedictions.[5] I am going to read some of what this early document of Judaism says about the real Jews, the Saints, the Christians. This is what it says about Christians:
For apostates let there be no hope, and the kingdom of insolence mayest thou uproot speedily in our days: and let Christians and the heretics perish in a moment, let them be blotted out of the book of life and let them not be written with the righteous.[6]
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You can see now a little bit about why the Christians might not be so happy with this new group who is openly attacking them in this way. You can understand why in these early days John might refer to these Eighteen Benedictions Jews as the ‘Synagogue of Satan’. And there is more. The ‘Synagogue of Satan’ is persecuting the real Jews who are the Saints and the Christians.[7] They are making life miserable for them – even more miserable than the 20th Century’s ‘Broad Street Bullies’ or Moe, Calvin’s schoolyard bully. The Christians are being persecuted and the Christians are suffering but in Philadelphia of the first century they are holding strong. And so God gives them this encouragement, Verse 8: “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” And Verse 11, “ I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
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You can see now a little bit about why the Christians might not be so happy with this new group who is openly attacking them in this way. You can understand why in these early days John might refer to these Eighteen Benedictions Jews as the ‘Synagogue of Satan’. And there is more. The ‘Synagogue of Satan’ is persecuting the real Jews who are the Saints and the Christians.[7] They are making life miserable for them – even more miserable than the 20th Century’s ‘Broad Street Bullies’ or Moe, Calvin’s schoolyard bully. The Christians are being persecuted and the Christians are suffering but in Philadelphia of the first century they are holding strong. And so God gives them this encouragement, Verse 8: “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” And Verse 11, “ I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
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Jesus is telling them that no matter how bad life gets, even as the Empire may eventually throw you to the Lions, even as your own countrymen turn their backs on you, even as those whom you love reject you and even if they pray with the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ that your name be blotted out of the book of life, everything will be okay.
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That is the main message of this whole book of Revelation, by the way: no matter what horrible and difficult things happen in this world, God says as long as you turn to Him it will be okay.
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The church in Philadelphia persevered and God saved the whole city through them and thanks to the Lord, Philadelphia actually became one of the last great bastions of Christianity to fall before the Ottoman Empire. They persevered and God protected them. God protected them and they persevered. It is the same with us today. As life gets difficult – which it will; as life has hard times – which it will; as our hearts grow heavy with sorrow – which they will; as tears well up in our eyes - as they will; as loved ones pass on - which they will; as the worries of our lives weigh down upon us – which they will; we can still persevere and we can still be encouraged that indeed, like the ancient Christian inhabitants of Philadelphia we can make it.
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Jesus warns us that difficult times, like those recorded in Revelation are coming. Luke 21:18-19 records, “But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.” Jesus promises, Hebrews 10:36, that we will receive what he has promised and we can stand strong and we can persevere and Jesus promises that, as Matthew 6 records, if we seek Him we will find Him.
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So I encourage us today that no matter what problems are facing you, no matter how many questions, fears, or doubts are in our minds, no matter how challenging life gets, as we turn to God, it will all be okay. Jesus promises, Verse 8: “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” and Verse 11, “ I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
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Let us pray.
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[1] Leon Morris, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1987 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 20), S. 80
[2] William M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (London: Hodder & Stoughton,:1904), 398.
[3] Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Commentary: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007), 156.
[4] cf. Captain Michael Ramsay, Revelation 3:20: Hello, is anybody in there? Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army (30 August 2009). Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2009/08/revelation-320-hello-is-anybody-in.html?m=1
[5] Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Commentary: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007), 156.
[6] William Horbury, ‘The Benediction of the Minim and early Jewish-Christian Controversy,’ JTS, n.s. 33.1 (1982): 20.
[7] Cf. Craig K. Koester, ‘Revelation’s Visionary Challenge to Ordinary Empire,’ Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, ‘Revelation as a Critique of Empire, Vol. 63 no 1, (January 2009): 7.
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