remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert” (cf. Judg 2:7, 10–11; Hos 2:14–16). A cooling of personal love for God inevitably results in the loss of harmonious relationships within the body of believers. Jesus had made it clear that “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Love for other believers was the distinctive badge of Christian discipleship,16 but at Ephesus hatred of heresy and