By: Rev. David Wilson Rogers
The church in the United States has a lot to learn from the church of Ephesus as portrayed in the pages of scripture. During the time of the Bible, Ephesus was arguably one of the world’s greatest cities and played a major role in the development of Christianity. Yet, for all the magnitude of this once-great city, today it is nothing but ruins.
The Book of Revelation includes a brief letter and stark warning to the church of Ephesus. In that letter, Jesus Christ complements the church for its history of faithful discernment between evil and good. Yet, the letter also admonishes the church for forsaking its first love. Rather than uphold the sanctity of its Christian faith, the church had largely sold out to the political powers of the city. Rather than shine as a beacon of Christian faith, hope and love, the church at Ephesus had aligned itself with the powers of darkness and embraced the vile nature of corrupt politics. For this, Christ warns the church in Revelation, that their prominence and blessing will be removed.
The Book of Ephesians further addresses the immoral decline of the church in Ephesus. Throughout the letter, the author repeatedly draws a stark contrast between the authentic life of a true believer and the false testimony of one who would profess Christ, but live a life of greed, impurity, vile speech, hatred, and anger. This life, Ephesians makes clear, is not the life of a believer. Rather, it is the life of one who embraces evil and undermines the integrity of Christianity.
The church at Ephesus is called to be strong in Christ amid the evil forces that dominate its culture at the time. Ephesians makes it clear. The true danger faced by the church were the rulers and authorities of the age that had embraced the cosmic powers of evil in order to legitimize power, blessing, and favor in the present age. In forsaking its original love for Jesus Christ, the church at Ephesus had embraced power and control rather than service, sacrifice, and love. Rather than embrace the grace of Christ, it had adopted a theology of hate and anger as the means of perpetuating its reign. Instead of holding to God’s truth, the church had resorted to a teaching of fear and perpetuated that fear in order to influence others for its own evil gain.
In modern times, much as in Ephesus nearly 2,000 years ago, Scripture calls the church to faithful vigilance that the church may stand strong “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Ephesians warns the church that our power does not come through the worldly means that are exemplified in pagan ways or the popular means of promoting power and influence within the world. Ephesians 5:3-7 states, “But fornication and impurity of any kind, or greed, must not even be mentioned among you, as is proper among saints. Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person, or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be associated with them.”
Instead of the disastrous and evil road upon which many in the church have aligned their allegiance in these dark days, we must rise in unity as the one Body of Christ that Jesus died to bring into being. It is the Christian way of living in this world today!