Message to Pergamos and Thyatira: Don't Compromise

Christ's warning about compromise remains an important lesson for God's people today.

In continuing our study of Jesus Christ's messages to His people recorded in Revelation 2 and 3, we now consider the two first-century cities of Pergamos and Thyatira. We will examine these two together because they were given the same basic message. Both had members who gave in to the same sin. The influence, or negative peer pressure, just came from different segments of society.

Pergamos, or Pergamum as it is also called, was “the chief city of Mysia, near the Caicus River in northwest Asia Minor (modern Turkey)… The city, situated opposite the island of Lesbos, was about 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the Aegean Sea.

“In its early history Pergamos became a city-state, then a powerful nation after Attalus I (241-197 B.C.) defeated the Gauls (Galatians). It stood as a symbol of Greek superiority over the barbarians. Great buildings were erected and a library containing over 200,000 items was established. The Egyptians, concerned with this library which rivaled their own at Alexandria, refused to ship papyrus to Pergamos. As a result, a new form of writing material, Pergamena charta, or parchment, was developed.

“In the days of Roman dominance throughout Asia Minor, Pergamos became the capital of the Roman province of Asia. In a gesture of friendship, Mark Antony gave Pergamos' library to Cleopatra; its volumes were moved to Alexandria.

“Not only was Pergamos a government center with three imperial temples, but it was also the site of the temple of Asklepios (the Greco-Roman god of medicine and healing), and the medical center where the physician Galen worked (about A.D. 160). Here also was a temple to Athena and a temple to Zeus with an altar showing Zeus defeating snake-like giants. In the Book of Revelation, John spoke of Pergamos as the place 'where Satan's throne is' (Revelation 2:13). This could be a reference to the cult of emperor worship, because Pergamos was a center where this form of loyalty was pledged to the emperor of the Roman Empire” ( Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers, “Pergamos”).

Another source adds, “The city was greatly addicted to idolatry, and its grove, which was one of the wonders of the place, was filled with statues and altars… The wealth of the Attalic princes had raised Pergamum to the rank of the first city in Asia as regards splendor. It was a sort of union of a pagan cathedral city, a university town, and a royal residence, embellished during a succession of years by kings who all had a passion for expenditure and ample means of gratifying it… Systematic study of Pergamum began in 1878 after the German engineer Carl Human (now buried on the Pergamum acropolis) discovered the great altar of Zeus (believed by some to be Satan's seat, Revelation 2:13), now in East Berlin” ( New Unger's Bible Dictionary, 1988, “Pergamum”).

As for religions: “There were beautiful temples to the four great gods Zeus, Dionysus, Athena and Asklepios. To the temple of the latter, invalids from all parts of Asia flocked, and there, while they were sleeping in the court, the god revealed to the priests and physicians by means of dreams the remedies which were necessary to heal their maladies. Thus opportunities of deception were numerous. There was a school of medicine in connection with the temple. Pergamos was chiefly a religious center of the province. A title which it bore was 'Thrice Neokoros,' meaning that in the city 3 temples had been built to the Roman emperors, in which the emperors were worshipped as gods. Smyrna, a rival city, was a commercial center, and as it increased in wealth, it gradually became the political center. Later, when it became the capital, Pergamos remained the religious center” ( International Standard Bible Encylopaedia, 1996, Biblesoft, “Pergamos; Pergamum”).

To briefly describe Pergamos, we could call it a large governmental, religious and medical center. It represented education and government. Thyatira, by contrast, was much smaller. Made up of businesses, it was a working person's town.

To be contd.

God bless you all.