Readings:
1 Maccabees 3-5
Revelation 2:1-11

1 Maccabees 3-5

Judas inherited the military leadership from his father and is so successful in early battles that Antiochus puts together a special force to specifically hunt him and his fighters down. They go up to pray and seek guidance from God about what they should do, while the Jews that sided with the Greeks went and sacrificed to idols before the battle to come.

Judas and his followers have many victories, and the thing that really stands out is that they don’t claim it’s anything they’ve done or any military genius they hold, but it’s all God fighting on their behalf. They recognize this and thank him for it.

After they defeat this Syrian army that was guarding the way to Jerusalem, they enter the city and cleanse the temple. They tear down the altar that was defiled and build a new one. They relight the lamps and offer sacrifices for 8 days in celebration. This is where the festival of Hanukkah comes from.

They get word that the gentiles are attacking the Jews in other areas of the holy land, so Judas splits his forces on goes on a rescue mission to Gilead and sends his brother Simon to Galilee while some of the force stays behind to garrison Jerusalem. Many times Judas will call back to the battles of old to show his men that God has delivered the sons of Jacob from large enemy forces on multiple occasions in an effort to give them courage to fight.

Revelation 2:1-11

John begins writing these letters being dictated to him by Jesus. The letters go to seven churches that are in about a 60 mile radius from each other with the order start in Ephesus and ending in Laodecia, in a clockwise pattern. These churches are all cooling off and losing their initial zeal for the gospel, with Ephesus being in the best shape and Laodecia being the worst.

Each of the churches are given an introduction that uses the images from the first chapter and then complimented on one of their attributes, except the last one. Finally they’re given a promised reward that is a foreshadowing of imagery in the final chapters of the book.

Starting with Ephesus, this could be considered John’s home church, and traditionally it’s held that he was the bishop here until his exile. He compliments their faith and works, but then accuses them of losing their fervor for Jesus and the gospel. As a side note, he also notes that they hate the works of the Nicolaitans, who were apparently a heretical sect, although we don’t know exactly what they believed, we are told what they did was hated by Jesus. They make a reappearance in the letter to the third church on this list.

The next church addressed is Smyrna, which is about 40 miles north of Ephesus and is now known as the Turkish city of Izmir. It was a city fiercely loyal to Rome and supportive of its cults of emperor worship, these cults played a key role in day to day life, and Christian’s refusal to participate limited their access to markets and jobs.

The Romans respected antiquity and rightly considered the Jews as an ancient religion, and so they were afforded certain privileges such as exemption from offering sacrifices to the Roman emperor as a god. The Christians were initially seen as a sect of Jews, and so were left unmolested by the Roman authorities. But due to constant denunciations from the Jewish community in Smyrna and other cities, the Romans came to see Christians as a new religion and so they gave no special privileges to them, because of this they were in poverty and the Jews of Smyrna are denounced as being of the “synagogue of satan.”

They’re told that they will undergo a test that will last 10 days but if they overcome it they’ll be given the crown of life. This seems like a call back to Daniel and his friends that refused the diet of the pagans and so were tested for 10 days. The crown of life may be a reference to their martyrdom.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
1 Maccabees 6-7
Revelation 2:12-29