Don’t be misled by false teaching

In Revelation Jesus says to the church at Thyatira , “I have this against you. That you tolerate the woman Jezebel.”

In verses 20 and 21 we read “The woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess.” Look closely at “she calls herself”. She refers to herself as a prophetess – a female prophet. You can almost feel the tension that’s going on in this text. This woman is standing up before the church and saying, “I speak for God. I am a prophet. My words are God’s words.” But who’s doing the rebuking here? Jesus Christ, God’s Son. It’s Jesus Himself. She’s saying, “I speak for God,” and Jesus says, “No you don’t !” She says, “I have the word of God,” Jesus says “I am the word of God.” “She teaches and leads My bondservants astray so they commit acts of immorality in eating things sacrificed to idols.”

In the early years of the church, as Gentile converts began joining Jewish believers in local fellowships, an issue arose concerning the eating of meat. Greco-Roman society was saturated with idol worship, and it was common for meat sold in the marketplace to have been consecrated as a sacrifice to false gods prior to its sale. The Jews would have nothing to do with such meat, wary of “unclean” food-handling practices and believing that to partake of consecrated meat was to give approval to idol worship—kind of a “second-hand” idolatry. The Gentiles rejected the notion that such meat was tainted and held that they could eat meat sacrificed to idols without endorsing idolatry—they had not actually offered the sacrifice, after all. The matter was becoming a point of contention within the church so they decided to not do it. Yet here Jezebel was encouraging the church members to eating things sacrificed to idols as well as other acts that we will look at tomorrow.

Your pastor and partner in ministry,

Kyle

We celebrate the life and mourn the loss of Kathy Herman.
Visitation will be from 5pm-7pm on Thursday at Klines Funeral home.
A Mass will be held for her at St. Marys in Gorham on Friday at 10am.