Revelation 2:19

‘I know your works and your love and faith and ministry and patient endurance, and that your last works are more than the first.'

This is as high a commendation as any church receives. The pure among them have not lost their first love (their last works are more than the first (contrast Revelation 2:5)), their faith is true, their ministry vibrant and they faithfully endure, and they are continuing to grow.

It should be remembered here as elsewhere that ‘the church in Thyatira' would not be composed of just one assembly but of a number of assemblies and house churches of varying sizes throughout the town connected through one set of bishops and deacons who would supervise the whole. Thus some groups may have kept themselves pure and maintained their zeal, while others have tolerated the heresy. Their failure lies in the fact that the leadership have not been more decisive.