The longest letter in Revelation is, ironically, written to the smallest and least known city. It lay on the road between Pergamum and Sardis, founded by the Greeks in Three Hundred BC. It was in a flat open valley and, being a gateway to Pergamum, often housed troops to defend that city.

Its main claim to fame, was the significant number of trade guilds based there, including wool and linen dyeing, garment-making, tanners, potters, bakers, slave dealers and brass workers. A trade guild is an association of traders, membership of which was essential for those wanting to pursue a trade. The problem for the believers in Thyatira, was that their meetings often involved acts of pagan worship and sexual immorality. As we know from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, avoiding involvement with these things was hard to do in wider society, without offending unbelievers. Jesus addressed an influence within the church, which He described as “seducing My servants” into these practices, promising to cut them off. He encouraged the saints in Thyatira to hold fast to what He had given them.

In Acts 16, we’re introduced to a woman named Lydia, whom Paul encountered in Philippi. Luke describes her as a ‘worshipper of God’, and she was one of the first to receive the gospel message in Philippi. It was in Lydia’s home where the church began. Luke tells us that she was from the city of Thyatira, and describes her as “a seller of purple goods”. Thyatira was also a significant centre for the wool trade in the ancient world, and Lydia was probably a seller of purple dyed fabrics. One the city’s specialties was the dying of cloth with a reddish purple dye, obtained from the madder root, later known as ‘Turkey red’. An inscription found at Philippi, honoured a purple dye dealer from Thyatira, who was a patron of a citizen in Philippi – who knows, maybe this was Lydia?