Revelation 2:3

Revelation 2:3. (5) And thou hast patience. The ‘patience' spoken of is the stedfast endurance already mentioned in Revelation 2:2, but the possession of the grace is enhanced by the use of the verb ‘have' thou hast it, it is thine. (6) And thou didst bear because of my name. They had not borne with evil men (Revelation 2:2); and yet, in not bearing them, in rejecting them, and in the struggle which was involved in doing so, they had had something to bear; they had borne the burden laid upon them because of the ‘name' of Jesus, because of that revelation of the grace and love of God which had been given them in Him (comp. on John 14:13-14). (7) And thou hast not grown weary. For the use of the word ‘grow weary,' comp. John 4:6. In Revelation 2:2 they had been commended for their ‘toil;' but now a step is taken in advance, they had not ‘grown weary' in it. How hard the duty, and how high the grace!

Such are the seven points in which the Ephesian church is commended; and, if we are right in considering them as seven, it will follow that the fourth, ‘didst find them false,' is the leading one of the seven; or, in other words, that the chief point of commendation in the state of the Christians at Ephesus is their instinctive discernment and rejection of false teachers, and their zeal for the true doctrine of Christ as handed down by His commissioned and inspired apostles. Around this all else that in their case was worthy of commendation centred. Here was the ‘toil' that never wearied, the ‘endurance' that never failed, the ‘bearing' of that bitter cross which consisted, as it did so largely in the case of our Lord, in contending against the ‘grievous wolves' that had entered into God's heritage, and were snatching and scattering the sheep (John 10:12). The first ‘work' of Christ, to maintain God's true revelation of Himself against selfish error, appears in the Ephesian church.