Revelation 2:10b was given to me at my baptismal service, as an encouragement for the life of discipleship that lay ahead of me. That was over 50 years ago, and by the grace of God I am still following Jesus today, although it has not always been easy.

Faithfulness is another great Christian characteristic, which is often underrated. There is nothing spectacular about it, and the church in Smyrna itself seems to have been an unspectacular kind of church. But the ability to stick to a task, to see things through to the end, to keep going with a loyal and steadfast determination, is something commended by Jesus.

There is, however, another aspect of faithfulness that is far more costly, and that is the decision to remain true to Jesus in the face of opposition. The church in Smyrna is warned that they will soon be called upon to suffer for their faith (v 10). Indeed, the Spirit tells them that some will be thrown into prison for ten days. Satan will test their faith – will they remain true to Jesus? How might I fare under such a prospect? How courageous am I? 

Help us to recognise the dangers of the values shaping the world and to rejoice in the true riches which are ours in Christ. 

The brief letter to the church at Smyrna is one of only two of the seven in which the message is entirely positive and without any word of rebuke. There is a striking contrast between the description of this community, materially poor yet spiritually rich, and the situation in Laodicea where exactly the reverse is the case!¹ The poverty of believers in Smyrna stood out in a city of great wealth and conspicuous prosperity, where material well-being was accompanied by prestige and honour. In this city, Christians were nobodies: they counted for nothing. The word used for ‘poverty’ actually signifies destitution. Jesus, who in life was despised and rejected, completely reverses the values by which honour and worth are assessed within the wider world and assures these marginalised believers that they are rich by the standards of the kingdom of God.

There are statements in all of these letters that are highly contextual. For example, for the original hearers in Smyrna the promise of ‘the crown of life’² would call to mind the magnificent acropolis which dominated this city and was referred to locally as the ‘crown of Smyrna’. Christians, who possessed little of this world’s goods, were told that they faced continuing and worsening persecution – even martyrdom – and yet were in possession of the gift of life and the promise of unimaginable glory and joy to come. This radical reversal of the values that dominated the wider world is characteristic of the entire book of Revelation. In the globalised world of the twenty-first century it compels us to reflect on the ‘judgements we make about churches in various situations today’.³ 

Reflect on that closing sentence. How do we evaluate the spiritual health of Christian congregations?

¹ Rev 3:17  ² Rev 2:10, NIV, 1984  ³  Catherine and Justo Gonzalez, Revelation: Westminster Bible Companion, Westminster John Knox Press, 1997, p26