Ephesus: The Church Who Forgot to Love

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches 
May 11, 2025
Revelation 2:1-7

At the beginning of worship:
Let me tell you a bit about Sam Jones. He was one of America’s most popular preachers in the late 19^th and early 20^th Century. You could sum his message up in this manner: “Quit your meanness!” At his peak, he often outdrew Dwight Moody. Many considered him a better preacher. By all accounts, he was funnier. 

Sam Jones is mostly forgotten. While there have been numerous biographies of Moody, there’s only been one of Jones published since his death in 1906. Laughter in the Amen Corner came out in 1993.^[1] Reading this book I learned Jones was from Cartersville, Georgia. It’s just a jump from Donna’s hometown. The next time we visited, I insisted on going. Donna thought I’d lost my mind and acted like Cartersville was on the far side of the earth. 

That didn’t matter. I drove the 15 miles over to Cartersville. I wanted to see the town that produced Sam Jones. 

Cartersville is a pleasant railroad town. Lots of trains race through the town, but they no longer stop. For Civil War buffs, this is the same railroad grade upon which the great train chase with the locomotive “The General” occurred.   

As with most county seats, the courthouse sits on a hill in the middle. Three churches flank the courthouse in Cartersville. Looking up from the train station, you have the Baptist on the left and the Methodist on the right. We Presbyterians are behind the courthouse—but we had a fine church there, one we cand be proud of. I walked around town to see what I could glean. 

At the Baptist Church, I learned Lottie Moon, the famous missionary to China and for whom the Southern Baptist have named their world mission offerings after, grew up in that church. And then, at the Methodist Church, I was surprised to see it named for Sam Jones. A few years after Jones’ death, they built a new sanctuary and named it, according to the cornerstone, “The Sam Jones Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South. (This was before all the mergers leading to the United Methodist Church.) I was amazed that this little town produced two of the South’s most famous religious figures in the late 19^th Century. I was a bit envious, wondering when the Presbyterian Church would catch up.

Although Jones was a proud Southern Methodist, it didn’t make much difference to him what flavor of religion one belonged. “A creed hasn’t’ got legs,” Jones often quipped, ‘and I can’t follow it.” And he’s right. Ultimately, we’re not called to be Presbyterian or Methodist or Baptist, but to follow the Savior. Jones humor was such that it pointed out human folly. “I could never preach,” he told a reporter, shyly adding, “but I can talk a little.” Once Jones got the crowd laughing at themselves, he’d introduce them to Jesus. It’s not a bad strategy.   

Before reading the Scriptures

Starting today, we’re going to look at each of the seven churches of Revelation. While all of Revelation is a letter, there are individual messages to seven churches, which we were introduced to last week. 

These seven churches are in towns which form a circle along a Roman postal route.^[2] Jesus is present within each church, so he’s able to communicate what’s happening in the life of each congregation. But it would be a mistake to think these letters only applies to the seven individual churches. The number seven, the divine number, implies fullness. So, within these letters we find situations that are present in our churches still today; hence, looking at these letters will be a lot like us looking in a mirror.   

These seven messages within the larger letter all take on a similar form. They’re addressed to an angel of each church. Christ is the author, but for each church a different metaphor is employed to refer to his identity. In most cases, there is praise for what the church does well as well as condemnation for where they fail.^[3]

Like these churches, we’d probably find Christ evaluating us in a similar manner, patting us on the back for the good we do and chastising us for the times we fail to live up to his standards.  

The first church in our visit is Ephesus. We know a lot about the early life of this church from the book of Acts. We also have Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Christianity was probably brought to Ephesus by Priscilla and Aquila around 52 A.D.^[4]  Paul spent a couple years in the city. So did Timothy. Ephesus bustled with trade in the first century. A port city of nearly quarter million people, it sat on a major trade route into Asia. 

The city boasted several major pagan temples, the most important one being for the Greek fertility goddess Artemis (the Roman goddess Diana). We know from Acts the silversmiths of this temple rioted because people were converting to Christianity and buying fewer pagan statues.^[5] Trade wars are nothing new. 

Let’s turn to Scripture and see what Jesus has to say to this congregation. 

 Read Revelation 2:1-7.

Think for a minute. Do you know any Christians who used to have a vibrant faith, was a pleasure to be around, but since has become a legalist? Someone joyous and happy, but now bitter?  Someone who use to be sweet and are now sour? Perhaps you’re feeling this way. It seems to be a common occurrence. We burn out. We lose focus. And we have all the right intentions but find ourselves bogged down in petty disputes. 

As the revivalist Sam Jones, whom I introduced earlier this morning, once said, creating a commonly used cliché, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” We start out with great plans but become sidetracked. Perhaps that’s what happened to the church in Ephesus. Or maybe they just felt good demanding other people obey God’s law. It gave them a sense of authority which is why humility is so important.

The Ephesians are zealous enforcers of orthodoxy. They tow the party line. They deal with heretics, those whose teachings go against the gospel, swiftly. The congregation has been patiently waiting for Christ’s return and has not grown weary. That sounds good. But then the tone of the letter changes, as Jesus charges them for abandoning the love they once had. 

It appears the Ephesians started off being a loving community. But their love waned. They put too much emphasis on right and wrong beliefs. Now, according to this letter, While Jesus isn’t too happy with these false teachers, he’s even more concerned about the lack of love among the faithful. They’re like those Jesus condemns in the Sermon of the Mount. They try to take a speck out of someone’s eye with a log in their own.^[6]

In John’s Epistles, we’re told that God is love and those who love abides in God and God abides in them.^[7] The church in Ephesus, for all their insistence on believing right, missed the boat. As important as right doctrine may be, it’s more important to have a loving community. Surpassing all creeds in importance is the command to love.

John Leith, the late professor from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, in the 1980s wrote a powerful little book titled The Reformed Imperative. It’s a challenge to fundamentalism—on both the left and right wings of the ideological spectrum. We tend to think of fundamentalism as conservative, but it can go either way. And both sides are wrong, according to Leith. Both make too simple distinctions between people. 

“The gospel is hidden from those who in their self-righteousness are proud of their moral achievements,” he wrote. And those “who know that they are righteous by their identification with the proper causes,” yet are vindictive toward others who have different views, whom they desire “to discard, to destroy.”^[8] Fundamentalist according to Leith miss the good news.

In other words, those who think they’re religious, yet who do not love, find the gospel hidden. And those who make a big deal about their faith, but do not love, miss the gospel’s truth. And those who are proud of their righteousness, but hold others in disdain, miss the good news. Leith, writing about the church in the late 1980s, could also have been writing about churches today. And he could have been writing about Ephesus in the first century. 

The Ephesians felt so good about their success in rooting out evil that they became self-assured of their righteousness. They forgot what’s most important. They forgot how to love. In striving to be right, they missed the gospel and became what they abhorred, heretics and hypocrites.

The dilemma of the church in Ephesus remains within the church today. How can we, the church, remain faithful to the truth while loving all people? It’s a tough challenge. Often someone quotes the cliché, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” But the tone of their voice makes me wonder if there is really love for the sinner. If we don’t love, despite right beliefs, we fall into the same trap as the Ephesians. 

Many of you, I’m sure, remember the old Wendy’s commercial. A grandmother-looking lady shouts, “Where’s the beef?” The implications being a hamburger joint is judged by the amount of beef between the two halves of the bun. Likewise, the church is judged, not so much by our orthodoxy, but by our love. Where’s the love? That’s what we need to ask, that’s the way our faith is evaluated. Do we love one another? 

Remember Sam Jones’ comments about not being able to follow a creed because “it ain’t got any legs.” What’s important is following Christ. We follow him who loved even his enemies and those who nailed him to the cross. Don’t get so hung up on making sure that everything is proper, and everyone acts up to our expectations. While proper thinking and right actions are important, it’s more important that we as a community love God and one another. Amen.      

---

^[1] Kathleen Minnix, Laughter in the Amen Corner: The Life of Evangelist Sam Jones (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1973).  Jokes and information on Jones from Minnix and from Doug Adams, Humor in the American Pulpit from George Whitefield through Henry Ward Beecher (Sharing, 1992). 

^[2] G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 28. 

^[3] For a detail discussion on the nature of each message see M. Eugene Boring, Revelation: Interpretation, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989), 85-97. 

^[4] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, revised edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 67

^[5] Acts 19:21ff

^[6] Matthew 7:3-5. 

^[7] 1 John 4:7

^[8] John H. Lieth, The Reformed Imperative: What the Church Has to Say that No One Else Can Say (Louisville: Westminster,1988), 60-61.