In the third message of The Church Jesus is Building, Grant Clark turns to Jesus' letter to the church in Pergamum (Revelation 2:12-17), a church that endured persecution well but quietly absorbed the beliefs and practices of the city around it. Grant argues that compromise is one of Satan's most effective weapons against the church because it works slowly, feels loving, and eventually leads us to accept what we once rejected, and that Jesus, who carries the sharp double-edged sword of his word, loves his church enough to pick a fight with it in order to call it home. ## Compromise and Accommodation Grant opens with the story of the first book he gave his future wife, a biography of Keith Green titled No Compromise, a worship leader who played with his head down so that every eye stayed on Jesus. The letter to Pergamum, he says, is a story of compromise and a story of accommodation, and he defines both terms. Compromise: to weaken your principles or to lower your standards or morals. To compromise is to act against your own convictions, your own moral code, your own beliefs. Accommodation: to make space for something. To create space for something new, something different, someone else, to change or adjust to suit them, to make them feel at home. The church in Pergamum compromised on what they believed and how they lived, and accommodated other teachings, faiths and philosophies in their community. Grant asks listeners to remember not their biggest compromise but their first one, and tells the story of pocketing a Looney Tunes cardboard tag from a t-shirt as a child, the first time he knowingly took something that was not his. Compromise, he says, normally starts small. At first our conscience bothers us, but over time it becomes easy, our hearts harden, and we become the kind of person who can do that sort of thing without thinking. The message is less about the act itself than about how repeated compromise shapes who we become, individually and as a community. ## Revelation 2:12-17 Grant reads the full letter. Jesus, who has the sharp double-edged sword, knows where they live, "where Satan's throne is." He commends them for holding on to his name even when Antipas, his faithful witness, was put to death among them. But he has a few things against them: some hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before Israel, eating food sacrificed to idols and committing sexual immorality, and some hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. "So repent. Otherwise, I will come to you quickly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth." To the one who conquers he promises hidden manna, a white stone, and a new name inscribed on it that no one knows except the one who receives it. Working through the seven letters, Grant has been asking what Jesus' letter to Restored would say, and a second question: "Which of these seven Churches is the most similar to the Western Church today?" Many writers, he says, think Pergamum best represents the church in the West in our time: a church increasingly influenced by the world around it, compromised in some of what it believes and how it lives. ## The City of Pergamum Ephesus was resisting false teaching, Smyrna was enduring persecution, and Pergamum was facing both. They were enduring persecution well while taking on board the false teaching and thinking of the world around them. Pergamum was a political powerhouse, the former capital of the Attalid kingdom and later an administrative center of Roman Asia. It was an intellectual hub with a library of 200,000 volumes, second only to Alexandria, and Pliny called it by far the most distinguished city in Asia Minor. Grant compares it to a modern Washington, D.C. Yet Jesus calls this celebrated city "Satan's throne." Cities carry nicknames, the Big Apple, Beantown, the Windy City, Sin City, but imagine a sign that reads, "Welcome to Pergamum, where Satan's throne is." Grant cites a recent WalletHub ranking of America's most sinful cities, scored on anger and hatred, jealousy, excesses and vices, greed, lust, vanity and laziness. The top five: 1. Las Vegas, Nevada 2. Houston, Texas 3. Los Angeles, California 4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 5. Atlanta, Georgia San Diego came in 33rd overall, but second in the nation for vanity. Why would Jesus call Pergamum Satan's throne? Grant offers several possibilities from the commentators, with pictures of the city's acropolis, which sat on the plateau above the city and was thought to resemble a throne, and the great altar to Zeus on the mountain, a structure that epitomized idolatry and paganism. There was also the cult of Asclepius, whose symbol was the snake and who was worshipped as a savior; people slept in his temple hoping the snakes slithering across the floor would heal them. Most commentators think the title refers to the city's loyalty to and worship of Caesar. Whatever the reason, Pergamum was the opposite of the Bible Belt. ## Jesus with the Sharp Double-Edged Sword Each letter contains a revelation of Jesus that the church needed to hear. Here (Revelation 2:12) he is the one with the sharp double-edged sword. The sword was a symbol of Pergamum itself, because the city held the Roman right of capital punishment; the sword stood for the city's authority over life and death. Jesus is saying that his authority is far greater than the state's. In Revelation the sword comes not from Jesus' hand but from his mouth. It is the sword of his word. God speaks and creates in Genesis; Ephesians 6 calls the word of God the sword of the Spirit; and Hebrews 4:12 says the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. As we read his word, his word reads us, getting under the skin to our desires, motives and hearts, bringing truth, correction and comfort. Grant quotes John Stott on the church in Pergamum: "Here a pitched battle was being fought, in which the soldiers were not men but ideas." - John Stott Jesus' word, other religions, other philosophies and other worldviews were clashing in this church, and Jesus writes to say that his word carries ultimate authority. The central message of the verse: Jesus, not Rome, has the ultimate authority, and Jesus is building his church on his word, his way and his will, not the words, wills and ways of the world. To illustrate the voices shaping imaginations today, Grant lists some of the most popular podcasts in America this week, with a one-line summary of what each represents: 1. The Joe Rogan Experience: questioning conventional wisdom, distrusting institutions, thinking for yourself 3. The Daily: understanding the world through journalism, current events and informed analysis 4. Call Her Daddy: embracing your sexuality, prioritizing self-empowerment, living authentically 5. SmartLess: life is better when we laugh together, practice friendship, stay curious and enjoy human connection He wonders what would come up if we could ask AI to list the top five messages shaping our own thoughts and hearts. ## Three Voices in Pergamum Jesus names three influential voices in the city and the church, one positive and two destructive. Antipas. Almost nothing is known about him; tradition says he was roasted alive in a bronze bull. Jesus calls him "my faithful witness," the same language used of Jesus himself one chapter earlier. Jesus was God's faithful witness unto death on the cross, and Antipas was Jesus' faithful witness in Pergamum, an example of a man who would not compromise even when compromise surrounded him. The teaching of Balaam. Balaam appears in Numbers 22 through 31, a prophet for hire and pagan diviner. When the king of Moab hired him to curse Israel, God would not allow it and blessed his people instead. So Balaam advised the king to seduce Israel through participation in feasts made to idols and through sexual immorality tied to pagan worship, the same issues that resurface for the early church in Acts. Balaam could not curse God's people, so he chose to seduce them through compromise. The teaching of the Nicolaitans, also condemned in the letter to Ephesus. Both groups spread the same ideas: immorality and idolatry, breaking God's law and worshipping other gods. The church in Pergamum loved Jesus and held on to him, but with a shallow theology and low doctrine. They embraced the city's view of sexuality, enjoyed the feasts to other gods, and built a bespoke faith, a customized Christianity that took a little of Jesus, a little of the feasts to Zeus, and a little of the Roman sexual ethic. ## Syncretism Syncretism is the merging or combination of different religions, cultures, philosophies, or schools of thought. Grant compares it to synchronized swimming: different people learning the same choreography and moving together. In syncretism, a collection of different beliefs are made to do the same dance in a person's life. Scripture warns against this again and again. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 that he fears, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, their minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ, because if someone comes preaching another Jesus, a different spirit or a different gospel, "you put up with it splendidly." That is Pergamum to a tee: their worship is no longer pure, their devotion eroded over time. "Satan doesn't need to persecute the church if he can seduce it." - Jen Wilkin Last week was opposition from the outside; this week is a church eroded from the inside. Some in Pergamum held to Jesus, some to Balaam, some to the Nicolaitans, and some to all three at once. In Christianity the hope is Jesus; in Pergamum the hope had become Jesus and something else. For the word nerds, Grant notes that Nicolaitans is Greek and Balaam is Hebrew but they mean roughly the same thing: nikan (conquer, lord) plus laos (people), and
