Thyatira, unlike the other cities of Asia Minor, lay on almost level ground and was bordered by rising hills. Its landscape and location made the city vulnerable to constant invasion, but its exporting business prospered because of the various roads that ran through the city and connected it to the Greek East. The first Christian convert in Macedonia—Lydia, a merchant of purple linens—was originally from Thyatira (Acts 16:14–15). Thyatira’s guild of dyers was prominent, along with its clothiers, linen workers, and coppersmiths. It is possible that the Greek word roughly rendered “burnished bronze” (the term does not translate easily into English) may have referred to a special metal alloy of copper and a silverlike zinc produced only in Thyatira. This metal is used to describe the luminou…