Unlike the larger cities that have received messages so far, Thyatira was a somewhat non-descript town with little distinction.  There were no temples to boast of and no major ports of trade.  It did lie on a trade route and was a center of both trade and production.  Archeology has shown that Thyatira was a busy marketplace with many different products produced and sold.  Because of this, there were a number of guilds to which one would have to be a part of if one wanted to make or sell something.  This was a problem for believers because often these guilds held festivals to false idols and to not participate was to chance being ostricized.  So what was one to do?  One leader, a woman named Jezebel, proposed to go ahead and participate.  The argument was likely made that since the idols had no power, it didn’t hurt anyone to participate.  The true, however, is that it brought one into a slippery slope toward idol worship and hurt one’s ability to claim Christianity as the sole truth.

The temptation exists even today to go along with something that we know will not harm us even if we know that it does not fit with the will of God.  Is going to a restaurant where the women are scantily dressed a sin?  One could argue not, but it is certainly a means towards drawing one into a deeper sin of lust or worse.  Christ’s words to Thyatira are a warning to us as well – flee that which can draw you down into sin.  Satan works slowly to draw us away from Christ.  We must be ever vigilant to flee temptation which draws us away from Christ and into the darkness of the world.