Thyatira #94

Thyatira was a modest but busy commercial city in the region of Lydia, in western Asia Minor, in what is now Turkey. It is the fourth of the seven churches of Revelation, addressed in the longest of the seven letters (Revelation 2:18-29), and it is also the hometown of Lydia, a merchant who became one of Paul’s first converts in Europe (Acts 16:14).

Biblical Significance

Lydia is described as a seller of purple goods, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God whose heart the Lord opened to Paul’s message at a riverside prayer meeting outside Philippi (Acts 16:13-15). Thyatira was known for dyeing and textiles, and inscriptions show that it had many trade guilds, among them dyers, wool workers, linen workers, and bronze smiths. Such guilds held feasts in honor of patron gods, so membership carried social and economic benefits but also pressure to take part in idolatry.

In Revelation, Christ addresses Thyatira as “the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass” (Revelation 2:18), an image perhaps fitting for a city of bronze workers. This is the only place in the book where he uses the title Son of God. He commends the church for its love, faith, service, and patient endurance, and notes that its recent works are greater than its first (Revelation 2:19). But he rebukes the believers for tolerating “that woman Jezebel,” who called herself a prophetess and taught his servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols (Revelation 2:20). The name recalls Ahab’s wife, who led Israel into Baal worship (1 Kings 16:31), and it is generally taken as a symbolic label rather than the woman’s real name. She was given time to repent but refused, and the letter warns of judgment (Revelation 2:21-23). Those who had not followed her teaching are told only to hold fast until he comes, and the one who conquers is promised authority over the nations and the morning star (Revelation 2:24-28).

Today

Thyatira is now the Turkish city of Akhisar. Because the modern town sits over the ancient one, the ruins are scattered and modest, and include the remains of a colonnaded street and some columns in the town center. The letter in Revelation is a reminder that the pressures on the church were often economic and social as much as political, and that compromise could arrive quietly through everyday commerce.