Sardis #95

Sardis was a wealthy and ancient city in western Asia Minor, in modern Turkey. It had been the capital of the kingdom of Lydia, and its last king, Croesus, was proverbial for riches. The city is the fifth of the seven churches addressed in Revelation 3:1-6, in a letter that contains no commendation of the church as a whole and one of the sharpest warnings of the seven.

Biblical Significance

Christ introduces himself as the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars (Revelation 3:1). He tells the church, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1). The letter calls them to wake up, to strengthen what remains, and to remember what they received and heard, keep it, and repent (Revelation 3:2-3). If they do not wake up, he says he will come like a thief, and they will not know at what hour (Revelation 3:3), an image also used by Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew 24:42-44).

The language would have had particular resonance in Sardis. The city sat on a steep hill that seemed impregnable, but according to ancient historians it fell by surprise, once to Cyrus of Persia around 546 BC and again to Antiochus III in 214 BC, when soldiers climbed a poorly guarded part of the cliff. A church that was complacent about its reputation would understand a warning about being caught unaware. Even so, Christ notes that a few in Sardis “have not defiled their garments,” and he promises that they will walk with him in white, that their names will not be blotted out of the book of life, and that he will acknowledge them before his Father and before his angels (Revelation 3:4-5).

Today

Sardis is a major archaeological site near the Turkish village of Sart, and excavations led by Harvard and Cornell universities have been under way since 1958. They have uncovered a huge gymnasium and bath complex, a large Temple of Artemis, and the ruins of a very large synagogue attached to the gymnasium, one of the largest known from the ancient world, which shows that a large and prominent Jewish community lived in the city. Lydia is also associated with some of the earliest coinage in the world, made from the gold-bearing sands of the Pactolus River. An earthquake in AD 17 devastated the city, and it was rebuilt with help from the Roman emperor Tiberius.