2:18 Thyatira. Thyatira was a city about forty miles east of Pergamos. Lydia, whom Paul met at Philippi, was from Thyatira. The letter to Thyatira is the central and longest of the seven epistles.

2:20 Jezebel. Jezebel had been the pagan queen of Israel in the days of Elijah (II Kings 9:22); she introduced Baal worship into Israel (I Kings 16:30-33). A similar seductress in the Thyatiran church had somehow obtained a position of leadership in the church, despite Paul’s warnings against women prophesying or teaching in the church (I Corinthians 14:34; I Timothy 2:11-12). Her anti-nomian teachings (that is, teachings “against law,” purportedly giving license to sin as one pleased), given with the claim that she had the gift of prophecy, had led the church into gross immorality while simultaneously manifesting love, faith and good works (Revelation 2:19). This church is typical of many churches since then that profess spirituality and “love” while downgrading doctrine and separation.

2:22 great tribulation. Christ referred to a coming period of “great tribulation,” and so did “one of the elders” later speaking to John (Matthew 24:21; Revelation 7:13-14). This warning indicates that the adulterous members (spiritually adulterous, as well as physically, and thus not truly born-again believers) of those Thyatira-like churches at the end of the age will be left behind when Christ returns and be cast into the period of great tribulation on earth, unlike the church at Philadelphia (see note on Revelation 3:10).

2:23 reins. That is, “kidneys,” symbolic of deep feelings.

2:24 depths of Satan. The “depths of Satan” is better rendered “the deep things of Satan.” Contrast I Corinthians 2:10—“the deep things of God.” When a church embraces Nicolaitanism and Balaamism, along with evolutionary pantheism, it may easily become infatuated with various manifestations of occultism, learning the deep things of Satan rather than the deep things of God.

2:25 till I come. The last four epistles all have references to the imminent return of Christ (see also Revelation 3:3, 11, 20). This indicates that there will be Thyatira-like churches, as well as churches like the churches at Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea, prominent on the earth at the time of Christ’s second coming.