I felt led to read in Revelations 2:6  this morning the letter to the angel of the church of Ephesus, and was curious as to why the Lord would hate the teaching of the Nicolaitanes, and it's written, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches"... so I prayed to know what this meant. I've never met anyone who could explain why that was something the Lord hated.

On the web, I found a pretty good explanation!  The Nicolaitanes were those who lorded it over the laity of the church... and the more I read, the more I could see a 'picture' of several church leaders in our past, and it made me remember how the Holy Spirit had told us several years ago to "abrogate the hegemony" of the church we then attended.  Looking up those words I learned that it meant 'get out from under dominating leadership'... which, as it now appears, means 'get away from those who lord it over the lay workers and other lesser members of the church, and says to them that they must not hear God for themselves, but through that leadership.

This is why the concept of the "Open Church" was so good to us... and yet it wasn't long before one open church we attended began to guard carefully against the Spirit-filled worship that they thought might frighten away some people... and indeed these leaders themselves chose not to enter into the freedom of worship.

This recent definition of "Nicos" meaning "conquerors" combined with "laos" meaning 'the people' was very clear and liberating to us... though it might not be received or even tolerated by many we know. Until I have a good freedom to share this I'll just keep these things in my heart, except to dare to share them with a chosen few. We realize that sharing 'radical' things such as this can cause us to lose friendships with many, but I'd still like to know what you think of this.