Greek For The Week: The Seven Churches Of RevelationНамуна

 Pergamum: A Church in a Hostile Culture 

 A worldview is how we perceive life. It’s our perspective, made up of our religious beliefs, philosophical ideals, political stances, and sacred values. It determines who we are and how we behave. Everyone has a worldview. So, who’s right and who’s wrong? Who get the final say?

We’re told in Revelation 2:12. Here, we find the church in Pergamum. This city was the center for Caesar-worship, the first in Asia Minor to build a temple to worship the Roman ruler. No place in all of Asia had more passionate worship for Caesar.

There were other forms of worship as well. Perhaps the most popular was the worship was to Asclepios, the god of healing. His followers called him “savior­,” making Christians cringe. Pergamum also had an altar to Zeus, where sacrifices burned all day. Four stories high, it sat on Pergamum’s hill, eight hundred feet above the city.

Pergamum also had the second greatest library in the whole world, second only to the one in Alexandria. At one point, it held over 200,000 parchment rolls full of knowledge from every field.

Pergamum’s variety of worship and the breadth of philosophy made it a center of culture and an arena for world views to meet. Christians didn’t have an easy time. They were unpopular for their righteous stances. It’s no different today; Christians are frowned upon and despised in places where there is a mix of world views.

Despite their society’s contempt for Christians, Jesus reassures the believers in Pergamum, telling them that His words are a “sharp two-edged sword.”

The Greek word for “sword” is rhomphaia. This refers to a large broad sword that was perfect for slashing. It had a long wooden hilt and its users wielded it with both hands. Jesus brings up a sword here because governors in Pergamum had the right of the sword, or the power to carry out capital punishment. The governors were abusing this power in order to persecute Christians for posing a threat to their worship and world view. This punishment was always the secular last word. But Christ reminded His church that He was the one who would have the final word. The power of judgment was in His hands. In the end, Christ is going to speak and the rest of the world is going to have to accept what He says.

So, don’t get discouraged because the culture has become so anti-God and the rhetoric so anti-Christ. While it certainly is demonic, Jesus is going to put things back in order when He has the final say.