‘I know your works and your labour and your patient endurance, and that you cannot bear evil men, and you tried those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them false, and you have patience and have endured for my name's sake and have not grown weary.'
In many ways this appears an exemplary church, good-living, hardworking, resilient, enduring, unaccepting of wrongdoing, but they lack one thing. They have become bogged down. They are so busy that they are losing sight of Christ.
We can contrast what is said here with the epistle to the Ephesians. There the emphasis was all on the grace of God and the centrality of Christ, here the emphasis is on works, labour and endurance. These latter are commended, but the church is reminded that the former is more important still.
The reference to apostles need not indicate that there was a wider level of apostleship. (In the New Testament apostleship is strictly limited to the twelve, Paul and Barnabas and James the Lord's brother). Rather it indicates that there were those who tried to claim such status for themselves, calling themselves apostles. The church rightly rejected them.