Looking at a slice of Laodicea

Looking at a slice of Laodicea

Rev 3:14. "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation.
15. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!
16. So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
17. You say, `I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
18. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
19. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.
20. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
21. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.
22. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."


This is often called the church of this age… I don’t think that is right but that is not what this particular post is about.

I think if a blogger names the blog “a slice of Laodicea” they are trying to point out that there is something wrong in today’s church. In that I whole-heartedly agree. The thing is if you look and read some of the things on “Ingrid” it does not take long to see that she is judgmental and really goes out of her way to find these herasies she loves to write about. I am not opposed to exposing people whom I think are hypocrites… I think it is very obvious as you read anything she writes what her true character is.

The ironic thing is if you look at the text from which she take her blog’s name, you find some interesting things I think she could learn from if she took any time to actually read the Bible and see what it does say.

First of this passage is a salvation passage… not about condemnation. You see if you notice, God is talking to a group of people who have not fully made up their mind for Jesus. They are neither hot or cold… they are neither for Him or against Him. So, what choice does Jesus have but to press the issue and tell them if one does not come fully to conversion they are as an unbeliever. Thus Jesus says, “ I will spew you out”. Then Jesus goes into the problem that has blind sided them. I think this is the issue in many modern churchs… that is money.
I am not anti money, nor anti rich. I do not think as a Christian one must be poor nor do I think Jesus was poor…. I think He was without need as He depended on His Father to suply all His needs. The problem of the church of Laodocia was they were rich and had no humility about it. I was listening to one of the MP3’s from the Generous Orthodoxy Conference in Seatle. In it one of the speakers (Sorry as I cannot remember who the speaker was) was talking about how there was a man that he knew who was very rich who did not grasp the concept of generosity. He could not understand how one who was poor who gave actually gave more out of their lack was more generous then when he gave the grand amount ($25,000) he was giving. He thought that the more you gave meant you were more generous, yet to him that amount was really not a sacrifice at all.

The people of Laodicea had this problem. They had much so had trouble seeing they had any real need. They lack humilty to ask for help. They lacked the ability to turn to Jesus and ask Him to help with anything.

Humilty is what is lacking in the people like Ingrid, Paul Proctors blogs. Humility is greatly shown throughout the emergent people that I have met. In fact I see Christ in more of the people in the emergent than I have in most modern churches I have been to and that is what attracted me the most. Without humilty there is no way one can learn and be changed by God. Humility opens the door to be clothed in the fine linen of Christ to cover our shame. We can have the gold more pure than any gold on this earthly wrold, and salve to open our eye to thing eternally important.

So that is what I am calling out for from anyone who claims Christ as their Lord, Saviour, friend, brother. Let us all bend our knees and will to open our heart to Jesus. That is why Jesus says in the last part of the letter t the Laodieans.

“19. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.
20. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
21. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.
22. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."


So are you listening? Follow Jesus and learn to live in LOVE, or follow Proctor and gamble…. (Groan… yeah I know that was bad {grin})

BTW Laodicea really did not account for much in history… in fact it came to ruin rather quickly and the only real historical significance is the warning written in the book of Revelation.
Blessings,
iggy

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