Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Revelation 2:1-7, Ephesus and the Nicolaitans
To Ephesus the one who holds the seven stars praises a church that tested false apostles and hates the works of the Nicolaitans, but warns that it has abandoned its first love and may lose its lampstand. The one who conquers will eat from the tree of life in God's paradise.
Revelation 2:1-7, in every translation this tool compares.
Jesus praises the Ephesian believers for hard work, endurance and for exposing false teachers and rejecting the group called the Nicolaitans. Yet they have let their early love grow cold, and unless they turn back he will take away their place as a light among the churches. Whoever holds out to the end is promised food from the tree of life in God's garden. Who the Nicolaitans were is debated.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/imperial-cult\/","n":"Caesar worshiped as savior and lord","s":"Augustus and the emperors after him were hailed as savior, lord and son of a god, and in the eastern provinces they were worshiped. The titles the Gospels give Jesus were already being used for Caesar.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/heavenly-jerusalem\/","n":"The heavenly Jerusalem","s":"Jews looked for a Jerusalem built by God for the age to come, and some spoke of it as already waiting in heaven. Exiles and resident aliens knew what it was to look for a city that would be home.","r":""}
Ephesus was the province's leading city (Keener), named guardian of the imperial cult, where a new cult of the emperors opened about five years before Revelation (the cultural backgrounds notes); the atlas names its temple, the Sebastos, for Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Says this is the prophets' messenger formula (Keener), and the seven letters resemble emperors' edicts, but the prophets' oracles on the nations more closely (the cultural backgrounds article Letters to the Seven Churches). The Cayster silted the harbor, but the lampstand threat is to the church (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener); the Zondervan dictionary instead finds a dying city's "lassitude" in the letter, and Heiser suggests removing the lampstand means withdrawing the church's guardian angel. Heiser, following Beale, reads the lost first love as a failing mission, not cooled devotion, since verses 2-3 commend them. The Nicolaitans are unknown (the cultural backgrounds notes). Some fathers tied them to Nicolas of Antioch, a link the dictionary finds unsupported and Heiser, with Aune, calls legend; Beale and Heiser read the name as he conquers the people, a match for the rabbis' Balaam. The tree of life is Eden's language, and the Artemis estates had tree-shrines (the cultural backgrounds notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Revelation 2:1-7, and on 2:1, 2:5 and 2:6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 2:1, 2:5, 2:6 and 2:7, and article Letters to the Seven Churches
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, on Revelation 2:14-15
- Carl G. Rasmussen, Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, The Seven Churches of Revelation, Ephesus
- Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries Ephesus and Nicolaitan
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 2: Letters to the Churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, and Thyatira, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
