[Elsie]

nicolaitanism: What it is...

14 But I have a few things against thee [the church in Pergamos], because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

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Any more biblical descriptors are welcomed.

[imardmd1]

Verse 14 does not describe nicolaitans. It describes the clique in the church promoting the Balaamite doctrine of eating idol sacrifices (which is OK for Christians if it is not a stumbling-block to a weak, unspiritual fellow "believer") AND to engage in not solely male-female coupling but any kind of immoral perverse sex gratification going against God's plan for the sex function.

Verse 15 shows that this does NOT describe or include nicolaitanism. That is another form of doctrine that is also hateful to Jesus and His servants.

Rev 2:15  So hast thou also* them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

  * "also" means "in addition to," "over and above"

Pergamos had Balaamites and (also) nicolaitans--two different groups. If Nicolaitans were Balaamites in practices, why was that not mentioned in the letter to the angel of Ephesus?

Nicolaitans are organizational power-grabbers, very plainly ones who seek to overwhelm the ordinary constituents of a group and dominate them. Nikaw = conquer, overwhelm; lao = the passive sheeple deprived of the self-direction function.

No wonder that the ones determined to introduce a clergy want the terminology directed away from them. To counter resistance, they rationalize another origin of the derivation of the title to deflect opposition.

[editor-surveyor]

Baalam had nothing whatsoever to do with Nicolaitanism, which is the creation of a human hierarchy within the Assembly (falsely called a “church” in the Greek translations)