Episode 7: To the Church in Sardis

 

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To the Church in Sardis

Background information

Sardis was a prosperous, yet small city in a region known formerly as Anatolia (which indeed is the same region all of the seven churches are found) until the early 20^th century, it is now called Turkey. Anatolia is a fascinating area, being credited with the oldest known structure (dated at about 9,000BC) called the Gobekli Tepe. This structure, by evolutionary reckonings of history, is thought to predate agriculture (which does not make sense really), and the bible would contradict this considering the first two sons were obviously farmers (Cain and Abel). In fact, there is a good case to be made that Adam was meant to farm the Garden of Eden. It makes sense for early humans to have been farmers since their parents had lived in a garden/farm called Eden; where we were created to work the land. Therefore farming is intrinsic to our creation. This contradicts the idea of theistic evolution which says (as does naturalistic evolution) that humans were first hunters and gatherers, and then evolved to a point where they decided to settle down and start farming. Farming is as ancient as historical records, so the argument that we were not first farmers is based on human assumptions, not good evidence.  

The title ‘Sardis’ is actually a plural word. This points to the city fortress which sat on top of a promontory, and next to the prosperous city of commerce, agricultural products, and related industry positioned on a level plane of the valley below. (Kistemaker)

The Top city could only be accessed by one road, so all attacking armies had to go that one way and could be funnelled into a narrow section of road and taken out at will. The rest of the city was protected by a high cliff, which was thought to be unassailable, and unclimbable. However in a time of war between King Croesus and Cyrus a soldier sitting at the top of the wall dropped his helmet and went down the cliff to retrieve it. He inadvertently showed the Persians that the wall could be climbed and so they did climb it and found there to be inadequate defences at the top. Cyrus was then able to defeat Croesus, making Sardis one of his principle cities. This happened in the 6^th century BC (546BC to be exact). Just a few decades after Jerusalem was destroyed (587BC), so the Jews would have been in captivity in Persia, as the Persian king was waging this war. Ironically, as people do, the future rulers of this city did not study their history (note after studying the Bible, the next most important subject is history, this is undeniable and unquestionable, if you do not believe me, study history and you will see why this is true 😉). In 214BC Antiochus the Great of Syria (a Macedonian ruler who was a descendant of one of Alexander the Greats generals; Seleucus) attacked the city and captured it in the same way as the Persians. They were able to do this because the then inhabitants had not bothered to study the historical weaknesses of the city in battle and therefore had not prepared for it. They had left the top of the cliff walls undefended again. Whoever says studying history is of no practical purpose is a fool.  

There was a thriving Jewish population in Sardis right up until the time of this letter and indeed beyond, who enjoyed citizenship and filled leading positions on the ruling council. However, they are not seen as opposing the church of Sardis in this letter. Kistemaker points out that this is likely because “the gospel that the local Christians proclaimed and applied was too weak to be offensive to the Jews.” This was also the case with the pagan religions. Obviously, the Sardinian Christians were too weak a Kingdom force to cause ripples in the false religions of Sardis. This was only not true of a few (3:4) who had not soiled their robes.

One of the principal gods of Sardis was Artemis (Greek) or Diana (Roman). These two gods hold the same place in both the Greek and Roman Pantheons and they are connected, though Diana probably rose separately in Italy, before being associated with being the same deity as Artemis. She is the goddess of the moon, the hunt and fertility. She is often pictured with a bow and arrow and with animals; that she has obviously hunted.

 Here is Artemis drawing an arrow while holding a deer captured on one of her hunts.

Here is Diana, which was the Roman name for Artemis. Notice the similarities.

Here is a modern drawing of Artemis, and under it a picture of Artemis Wonder Woman who was based on this ancient Greek goddess. Indeed, Diana, the most famous Wonder Woman with dark hair, was based on Roman goddess Diana, their version of Artemis. This was a done deliberately by the DC comic group, who actually do tend to study their history to some degree. There are still pagans who worship Artemis, and other Greek gods, as I found while I was researching this topic.  

These are the ancient ruins of the temple of Artemis in Sardis. As you can see it would have been grand once. Something which is important to note about Christianity is that it is the only religion in the world which does not require a temple building. Sometimes building debt can become too much of a focus for churches and really drag them down. This can divert billions of funds away from the work of gospel, while all the while being done in the name of the gospel. It is not wrong to have a building, or even a nice one, but we need to maintain some perspective. As you can see this is how they will all end up. But the real temple of God, his church, will live on forever in heaven.

Interestingly, Artemis is one of the few Greek gods which gets a mention in the New Testament. Acts 19:21-41 mentions some followers of Artemis in Ephesus who have rallied up against Paul. This is because his gospel preaching was so successful in that area it was starting to effect the sales of their idols, and this bothered the idol makers who made money by selling those false idols (shows what their true god was). Interesting how capitalism has a hold on people even in ancient times. What is also interesting is how people today get upset when religion interferes with their business, or money making schemes, but not just religion obviously. It is likely that Artemis gets a mention in the Bible simply because she was so widely loved, adored and worshipped, a bit like Ashtoreth in the Old Testament, the female god Jezebel was a promoter of (as well as Baal of course).  

The church in Sardis is a terrible church and the one which I believe most reflects the Australian church in general. We see Jesus in this passage urging people to wake up or God would let their church die. I think so far we have not woken up in this county, but as long as one believer remains God can work.

Let’s get into our passage:

1.     Why does Jesus introduce himself to this church in such a way? You may have noticed by now that he introduces himself to each church in unique ways.

1.1  I believe this is because it is the Spirit which gives life to the church, and Jesus is offering this church new life from the Spirit, if only they would reach out and take it. But there is also a threat here, because the seven stars in Christ’s hand are the ‘messengers’ of the seven churches, and Christ holds their life, as in Spiritual life, in his hands (Rom 8:13, 14).

 

2.     I once heard a pastor of a church say that their church had a great reputation in the community it was in for its worship music (ironically it was not a Pentecostal church, but a Baptist church). The church in Sardis had a reputation for being alive, but it is dead, stone cold spiritually dead. Where do you think your church sits? (Note Amos 5:16-24; Isaiah 58).

 

 

3.     V2, What are incomplete works? Who is being told to wake up? (Compare with 1 Cor 11:27-30).

 

4.     V3, What is it that this church has received and heard and failed to keep?

 

 

5.     V4, What makes someone worthy to walk in white?

 

 

6.     What is the negative implication of verse 5, or the implied threat? What is the positive encouragement?

 

 

Conclusion

One does not want their church to be like this one. Let us pray that we never hear these words, or similar from Christ about our fellowship.

How may we go about seeing that this is fulfilled?