blazing eyes is to focus on the incisive comprehension of the Christ who knows precisely and exactly what is transpiring among all the churches in general and in Thyatira in particular

John has taken something with which every Thyatiran would be familiar to use as an expression denoting the strength and ability of the Savior to deal with whatever situation must be faced in Thyatira

then the phrase is added that the saints in Thyatira were achieving more now in these areas than they did even at first, which suggests growth in Christian maturity—a reasonably unusual situation since the tendency is for spiritual entropy to assert itself in the churches

while the risqué teacher of the Thyatiran church possibly was actually named Jezebel, more likely John has assigned her this name in order from the outset to characterize her for his readers. If so, he would have dealt a telling blow even before he proceeded to describe her behavior

Specifically, the sin at Thyatira was the sin of tolerance. To contemporary ears, to say such a thing sounds strange since in the present climate, intolerance is about the only universally recognized sin. But the church in Thyatira was tolerating a woman named Jezebel, who spoke of herself as a prophetess, teaching the servants of Christ to eat things sacrificed to idols and to become involved in sexual promiscuity

Possibly Jezebel even went a step beyond them in claiming to be a prophetess, which would suggest that her teachings were not merely based on deductions from the material received from the apostles and prophets but that she considered her own utterances on a par with or superior to the writings of the apostles and prophets. In other words, she added to false teaching the authority, as it were, of God himself

the Lord indicates that he had given her space to repent. The expression itself probably indicates that she had received a previous warning and had chosen to disregard it. Hence, she is deemed “unwilling” to repent

The Lord presents himself as the One who is continually searching (the present active participle of eraunaō), suggesting a continual action on the part of the Lord to evaluate both the affections and thoughts (common meaning of the Greek kardia) and even the emotions (nephros) of the Thyatiran church. Just as one will reap what he sows, the Lord promises to pay each according to his deeds.

There follows an interesting word of promise to some at Thyatira who have clearly abstained from listening to the teachings of Jezebel. The Lord promises that those who “have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets” will have no other burden imposed on them. They are simply to hold fast to what they have until the Lord comes

The humble servants of Christ who serve the church at Thyatira will someday be given enormous authority over all the nations in keeping with what the Lord himself promised when he said, “[He that is] faithful over a few things, I will make ruler over many” (Matt 25:21 NKJV). However, to assign this as a promise merely for the ultimate eternal heavenly realm also reduces to insignificance the reference to tōn ethnōn or “the nations.” More probable would be a view that would associate this promise with assignments in the millennial kingdom

The promise is then that the church at Thyatira, faithful to the calling of God, will eventually receive the morning star that is the abiding, close, imminent, and eternal fellowship with the Lord himself