Akhisar, the site of ancient Thyatira, is a thriving modern city, but with almost no remains of its old self to be seen except the ruins of an ancient temple, possibly to Apollo, a colonnaded road, and a large church. The city is on the main road between İzmir and Bursa, a road which runs somewhat parallel to the coast road from İzmir to Pergamon. Akhisar lies in the valley of the Lycus (Kum Çayı) River (not to be confused with the Lycus near Laodicea), one of the chief tributaries of the Hermus (Gediz) River.

According to Pliny the Younger, Thyatira was founded by the Lydians and was called Pelopia. In the third century B.C. Seleucus Nicator took Lydia and garrisoned the place with Macedonian troops, renaming it Thyatira (town of Thya). Lysimachus, another of Alexander’s generals, was then in control of Pergamum. Thyatira was on the border of both empires; first one side held it and then the other. In 190 B.C. Pergamum took it and strengthened it as a protection against the Seleucids of Sardis and beyond. A less defensible city is hard to imagine, lying as it does among softly rolling hills with only a bump for an acropolis. But it became an important outpost for the protection of Pergamum and Sardis, two of the world’s greatest capitals at different times.

The coins of the ancient town give us clues as to the kind of gods worshipped there. The chief god apparently was the sun god, Apollo-Tyrimnos, portrayed wearing only a cloak fastened with a brooch under his chin and carrying a battle-axe over his shoulder. Another coin shows the god astride a horse ready to go forth to battle. The military character of the city is well attested in these coins. After 132 B.C. when Roman influence became stronger, emperor worship was a part of Thyatiran ritual and the emperor was identified as Apollo incarnate.

Josephus tells us that Seleucus probably settled a colony of Jews in Thyatira early in his rule, knowing that a garrison of soldiers alone could not produce a viable community. This is substantiated by inscriptions indicating the many trade guilds in the city. Even informal scratchings on theater seats or city pavements have provided archeologlsts with details of life 2000 years ago, and perhaps should give us pause in our annoyance at the quantities of red paint splashed across walls today. Could it be that “Amerika” might be discovered 2000 years hence because of some leftist slogan still Intact on a university building?

No other city seems to have had so many guilds as Thyatira: coppersmiths, bronze workers, tanners, leather workers, dyers, workers in wool and linen, potters, bakers, and slave dealers. A member of one of these, Lydia of Thyatira, whom Paul met outside the city of Phillppi

(Acts 16:14) was a seller of purple goods. These may have been woolen and linen dyed Tyrian purple  a deep crimson made from snails and so expensive that robes of this material were worn as a mark of royalty. In Byzantine times “born in the purple” (porphyrogenitus) was the title of the son born after his father ascended the throne. Although snails are no longer used for this dye, in the Roman Catholic Church the phrase “promotion to the purple” still indicates elevation the the rank of cardinal. Lydia, who must have been a person of some means, was a worshipper of God and apparently a Gentile who had been attracted to Judaism in Thyatira.

In the first sentence of the letter in Revelation to the angel of the church in Thyatira there is a reference to “the Son of God, whose eyes flame like fire and whose feet gleam like burnished brass” (Rev. 2:18). Was John here comparing the emperor of Rome, who, as the incarnate sun god Apollo was the son of Zeus, with Christ? The word translated “burnished brass’ is used nowhere else In the New Testament; it is one that the guild of bronze workers would recognize.

The members of the church of Thyatira were commended for doing more than they did at first (Rev. 2:19). However the fact that they made no effort to control the prophetess Jezebel was a cause of concern (Rev. 2:20). Jezebel was probably either a pseudonym or a general reference to licentiousness. The original Jezebel was a Phoenician Baal-worshipper and wife of Ahab, King of Israel. She left behind her a name for “obscene idol worship and monstrous sorceries” (II Kings 9:22).

Libertinism has been a constant threat to the Christian church. Had the followers of Jesus compromised with their non-Christian friends, the Christian group would have sunk and been engulfed by paganism. The threat to the church here was not from outside the church, not from emperor-worship or persecution, but from within in indulgence and lack of moral responsibility: “I am the searcher of men’s hearts and thoughts” (Rev. 2:23). But to those who hold fast, “I will give authority over the nations… and I will give him also the star of dawn” (i.e., immortality) (Rev. 2:26, 28).