Read this letter’s full text in Revelation 2:8-11

History

Smyrna was situated 60 kilometers north of Ephesus at the present-day port of Izmir, which today is Turkey’s second largest city with one of the most important harbors in the region.

Smyrna housed the shrine to the goddess Nemesis and was one of the last cities to fall to Islam.

Acts 19:10 suggests that the church in Smyrna may have been established by Paul on his third missionary journey.

Historical Application

The letter to Smyrna contains no admonishment, and as the name implies, the sacrifice which Christians were called upon to make in this time period served to draw people to Christ (see 2 Corinthians 2:14-15).

To this church, many of whose members would actually suffer death by persecution, Jesus introduced Himself as “the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive” (Revelation 2:8). Then the words of the coming peril were given, “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days” (Revelation 2:10).


Prophetic Application

These words were fulfilled, for during this period, the most vicious persecutions occurred against the Christians. In 107 AD, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch in Syria and a friend of John the apostle, was thrown to the lions and eaten alive in the amphitheatre of Rome.

In 155 AD, Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and a close friend of Ignatius, was killed by the sword, his body burned at the stake in Smyrna.

It was through the witness of Christian martyrs that Tertullian of Carthage, in Africa, was converted to Christianity at the age of 30, and thereafter became a defender of the Christian faith. Read Tertullian’s work

This period of persecution came to its climax under Diocletian, who, in 303 AD, launched a vicious, empire-wide effort for the complete annihilation of Christianity. Although he died in 305 AD, the persecution continued until it was finally brought to an end in 313 AD by the decree of toleration issued by Emperor Constantine.

The Diocletian persecution lasted ten years. The ten-day tribulation predicted for this church (verse 10) coincides with this ten-year period when the day-year principle of Biblical prophecy is applied. Persecution cleansed the Church by forcing Christians to consider whether they were truly willing to follow Christ in all circumstances.

In the ancient city of Smyrna, the most expensive homes were on the mountainsides that rose above the bay. This gave it the name “Crown City.” We can appreciate the appropriateness of the promise, “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life…He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death” (Revelation 2:10-11).