Thyatira

Thyatira is one of the seven cities addressed by John in the Apocalypse. The verses that survive in UPDV identify the city among the seven churches and record the message addressed to its assembly.

Among the Seven Churches

The opening vision names Thyatira in the list of recipients: "saying, What you see, write in a book and send [it] to the seven churches: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea" (Rev 1:11). Thyatira sits fourth in the list, between Pergamum and Sardis.

The Message to Thyatira

The address itself opens with the Son of God's self-description in fire and bronze: "And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These things says the Son of God, who has his eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like burnished bronze" (Rev 2:18). The eyes-of-flame and burnished-bronze imagery characterize the speaker.

The message includes a word to those in the city who have not gone with the false teaching: "But to you⁺ I say, to the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as do not have this teaching, who don't know the deep things of Satan, as they say; I cast on you⁺ no other burden" (Rev 2:24). The teaching itself, called "the deep things of Satan" by those who hold it, is set off from "the rest" who do not share it; the latter are not given an additional load.