Full Rev 2:1–7. Title echo: the seven stars/lampstands image re-cites Rev 1:20, where Christ himself glosses it: "the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks are seven churches." City history: Artemis temple (one of the Seven Wonders); Pauline mission base (Acts 19); 3-year stay; the riot of the silversmiths. Commendation: works, labor, patience, hating Nicolaitans, testing false apostles. Rebuke: "thou didst leave thy first love" (2:4), an echo of Israel's own honeymoon devotion, "the love of thine espousals"
(Jer 2:2), now applied to the church. Promise: "To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God" (2:7). Cross-link to Tree of Life in Revelation.
"The sin that Christ charged this church with was their decay and declension in holy love and zeal: Thou hast left thy first love; not left and forsaken the object of it, but lost the fervent degree of it that at first appeared." — Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Rev 2:4