In the second and third chapters of Revelation, the Spirit shows John the Lord’s insight and judgment on the Seven Churches of Asia. It is both discouraging and frightening that the Lord “holds something against” five of the seven churches.
The Church in Ephesus has forsaken their first love. The Church in Pergamum was riddled with false teachers. The Church in Thyatira tolerated the teaching of Jezebel. The Church at Sardis was described as being dead. Perhaps even worse, the Church at Laodicea was described as lukewarm. The only encouraging thing in the letters to these five churches was there were still a few believers who were faithful, and the Lord still pursued these churches and called them to repentance.
The churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia received no condemnation from the Lord. Rather, they were praised for their faithfulness and their steadfastness in the face of intense suffering and persecution. They were not the most powerful nor the most affluent churches of Asia, but they did the most important thing a church can do; they kept the Lord’s commandments.
It is the prayer of the Shepherds and Ministers and Mandarin that the angel of the Mandarin Church of Christ would send us the same letter Smyrna and Philadelphia received.
-Dan Nix