‘But here is something I hold against you. You don’t have as much love as you had at first. Remember how far you have fallen! Turn away from your sins. Do the things you did at first’ (Rev 2:4–5)
It was an extremely hot day. We were excited as we walked towards the ruins of ancient Ephesus. Massive, impressive buildings still stand. We sat on the bleachers of the great amphitheater and imagined the scene when the apostle Paul and his team were in Ephesus:
‘At that time many people became very upset about the Way of Jesus. There was a man named Demetrius who made things out of silver. He made silver models of the temple of the goddess Artemis. He brought in a lot of business for the other skilled workers. One day he called them together. He also called others who were in the same kind of business. “Men,” he said, “you know that we make good money from our work. You have seen and heard what this fellow Paul is doing. He has talked to large numbers of people here in Ephesus. Almost everywhere in Asia Minor he has led people away from our gods. He says that the gods we make are not gods at all. Our work is in danger of losing its good name. People’s faith in the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be weakened. Now she is worshiped through all of Asia Minor and the whole world. But soon she will be robbed of her greatness.” When they heard this, they became very angry. They began shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Soon people were making trouble in the whole city. They all rushed into the theater. They dragged Gaius and Aristarchus along with them. These two men had come with Paul from Macedonia. Paul wanted to appear in front of the crowd. But the believers wouldn’t let him. Some of the officials in Asia Minor were friends of Paul. They sent him a message, begging him not to go into the theater.
The crowd didn’t know what was going on. Some were shouting one thing and some another. Most of the people didn’t even know why they were there. The Jews pushed Alexander to the front. Some of the crowd tried to tell him what to say. But he motioned for them to be quiet. He wanted to speak up for himself in front of the people. But then they realized that he was a Jew. So they all shouted the same thing for about two hours. “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” they yelled.
The city clerk quieted the crowd down. “Men of Ephesus!” he said. “The whole world knows that the city of Ephesus guards the temple of the great Artemis. They know that Ephesus guards her statue, which fell from heaven. These facts can’t be questioned. So calm down. Don’t do anything foolish.
These men haven’t robbed any temples. They haven’t said evil things against our goddess. But you have brought them here anyhow. Demetrius and the other skilled workers may feel they have been wronged by someone. Let them bring charges. The courts are open. We have our governors. Is there anything else you want to bring up? Settle it in a court of law. As it is, today we are in danger of being charged with causing all this trouble. But there is no reason for it. We wouldn’t be able to explain what has happened.” After he said this, he sent the people away. (Ac 19:23–41)
Remembering that frightening scene, Kay and I wandered around the ruins. There’s the gladiators graveyard, and the Temple of Artemis, one of the wonders of the ancient world. This city once teemed with around 250,000 people. Today, it’s deserted, except for tourists like us.
Tom Wright wrote this as a result of his visit to Ephesus;
‘The one thing you don’t see today in Ephesus, or in the surrounding modern towns and villages, is an active church. To begin with this may not seem odd. But Ephesus had been one of the major centres of early Christianity. By the early second century, Christian writers were holding up Ephesus as a great example of Christian faith, life and witness. For several centuries it held a position of pre-eminence, and one of the great fifth-century church councils was held there (AD 431). Archaeologists have found a church building in the city, which may be where that council took place. But there are, to repeat, no active churches there today. If there are any Christians there, they are in hiding…..as all church workers know, there is often a delicate balance, and a group who are rightly concerned for the truth of the gospel may forget that the very heart of that gospel is love. The Ephesians had fallen into that trap: ‘you have abandoned the love you showed at the beginning’ (verse 4). This may refer to their love for Jesus himself, and certainly that must always be kept firm and central. But here it’s clearly a matter of things people actually do: ‘Repent’, says Jesus, ‘and do the works you did at the beginning.’ ‘Love’, in the early Christian sense, is something you do, giving hospitality and practical help to those in need, particularly to other Christians who are poor, sick or hungry. That was the chief mark of the early church. No other non-ethnic group had ever behaved like this. ‘Love’ of this kind, reflecting (they would have said) God’s own self-giving love for them, was both the best expression of, and the best advertisement for, faith in this God. It’s easy to let this slip. It’s easy to settle down into a vaguely comfortable existence which puts its own needs first and, sometimes, last as well. The Ephesian church needs to wake up, to remember how things used to be, to repent and get back on track’.1.
So what is ‘first love?’
Let’s hear from a range of commentators:
G.K Beale:
‘The idea is that they no longer expressed their former zealous love for Jesus by witnessing to him in the world. This is why Christ chooses to introduce himself as he does in v 1. His statement that he “walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands” is intended to remind the introverted readers that their primary role in relation to their Lord should be that of a light of witness to the outside world’.2.
Leon Morris:
‘The condemnation of this church is expressed in one memorable phrase, You have forsaken your first love. It is not clear whether this is love for Christ (‘you do not love me now as you did at first’, gnb), or for one another (‘you have given up loving one another’, Moffatt), or for mankind at large. It may be that a general attitude is meant which included all three (‘you do not love as you did at first’, Phillips). Forsaken (aphÄ“kes) is a strong term; they had completely abandoned their first fine flush of enthusiastic love. They had yielded to the temptation, ever present to Christians, to put all their emphasis on sound teaching. In the process they lost love, without which all else is nothing….so Christ calls on them to come back. There are three steps. First they should remember their first state (there is a tragic air of completeness about the perfect, peptÅkas, fallen). It is possible to slip away gradually without realizing what is happening. A useful counter is to go back in thought to the first days. The Greek imperative is present, with a meaning like ‘keep on remembering’, ‘hold in memory’. They had enjoyed a close walk with God. Let their minds dwell on that. The second step is repent (the aorist points to a sharp break with evil). Christians can never dally with wrong. There must be a sharp break with it. But Christianity is not basically negative and the third step is do the things you did at first, i.e. the works that had issued from their first love.’.3.
Finally, R.H. Mounce:
The Ephesian church had forsaken its first love. The expression includes both love of God and love of humanity at large, but here it seems to refer mainly to the love that the Ephesian converts had for one another (as in 2 John 5).15 Jer 2:2 is instructive. God speaks through the prophet to apostate Israel, “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert” (cf. Judg 2:7, 10–11; Hos 2:14–16). A cooling of personal love for God inevitably results in the loss of harmonious relationships within the body of believers. Jesus had made it clear that “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Love for other believers was the distinctive badge of Christian discipleship,16 but at Ephesus hatred of heresy and extensive involvement in the works appropriate to faith had allowed the first fresh glow of love for God and one another to fade. The church is called upon to remember the earlier days in which love abounded in the congregation. Memory can be a powerful force in effecting a return to a more satisfying relationship (when the prodigal son in Luke 15:17–18 “came to his senses” he remembered that his father’s hired men had more than enough to eat while he was starving). First love is pictured as a height from which the church had fallen. The present imperative, “remember,” stands in contrast to the aorist imperative, “repent,” and suggests a continuing attitude over against a decisive break. Bear in mind the loving relationships you once enjoyed and make a clean break with your present manner of life! The “things [they] did at first” were those that resulted from their initial response of love. The love that John requires is not an “undiscriminating amiability,” but an attitude toward the brethren that expresses itself in loving acts. Repentance is an active step. It is a radical redirection of one’s entire life. If the church does not repent, Christ will come and remove their lampstand from its place. The reference is not so much to the parousia as it is to an immediate visitation for preliminary judgment. Christ, after all, walks among his churches (2:1). Without love the congregation ceases to be a church. Its lampstand is removed’.4.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I truly want to love you as I did at first. In moving forward with you, I want to return what I have left behind, be it passion, commitment, sacrifice, availability, witness. Enable this by the work of Your Holy Spirit, for the glory of Christ. Amen.
1. Wright, T. (2011). Revelation for Everyone (pp. 10–14). SPCK; Westminster John Knox.
2. Beale, G. K. (1999). The book of Revelation: a commentary on the Greek text (p. 230). W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press.
3. Morris, L. (1987). Revelation: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 20, p. 65). InterVarsity Press.
4. Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (pp. 69–71). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.