What does it mean to remove a church’s lampstand?

If you wanted to control people using fear and dark threats, you could become a Sith Lord, or you could take the good promises of Jesus, turn them inside out, and use them to terrorize God’s children. Let me give you an example: Unless you repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand out of its place. (Rev. 2:5) What does that mean? It sounds scary. I’d better do whatever the man of God tells me. And bam, there goes your freedom. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go. In the research I did for Letters from Jesus, I read dozen of commentaries and was regularly horrified by how this good promise was interpreted. What does it mean to remove your lampstand? Apparently it means Jesus is going to close your church or kill your pastor. Yes, I actually read that. “How dreadful are the punishments of Christ!” said a certain Victorian minister. “He may take away your minister; and he may also take away the light of his word.” (Think about that for a second: If you don’t repent, the man up front gets whacked by Jesus. Makes perfect sense.) Sadly, this was par [...]