Tag: jesus

Exploring Antioch and Laodicea

~ Jim ~ Leave a comment

As discussed in earlier posts, I think that evangelism – proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God – is a key aspect of the Christian faith. It’s a vital part of the way we should live in this world, which is why Jesus pointed to it many times, trained and sent out disciples, focused the disciples on it in the beginning of Acts, and perhaps even why God has given us the book of Acts as the main picture of the early church.

Given the clear directive and the amount of effort put into evangelism, one would expect continual growth of the kingdom. However, this clearly isn’t happening, and it seems to many people that the world is getting spiritually darker every day. Whatever tactics are being used today to grow the kingdom, it’s clearly not working.

Trying to understand this led me to the letter to the Laodiceans in Revelations. In that letter, Jesus rebukes the church in Laodicea as being lukewarm, which in the context of the letter, likely meant that the church was ineffective and not fulfilling its purpose, just like both cool refreshing water and hot healing water became unpleasant, even useless, when piped from their sources to Laodicea, because the water was lukewarm.

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Remembering Resurrection

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For many Christians today, it seems that the world is getting darker all the time. Not just in statistics like dropping church attendance, but in the growing secularism of many of our systems, the growing acceptance of immoral behavior in our leaders, the growing wealth disparity and other signs of a greed-dominated culture, and so on. In many cases, people still describe themselves as spiritual even when they stop associating with any specific religion, so the need is there, it just isn’t being met by Christianity.

Of course, there are many theories, books, and pundits that try to explain these observations, for most part focusing on the social, psychological, and sometimes even spiritual, trends of the last century or so. However, I’ve also noticed, really highlighted by the Covid pandemic, how different many of our beliefs and practices are from the early church.

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White Garments in Laodicea

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Evangelism is important, but the church’s efforts today seem not to be working. This is not a problem with the world, but with the church. If there is an element of ineffectiveness in the church today, perhaps we can gain insight by looking at the letter to the Laodiceans.

The letter to the Laodiceans is the only one of the seven letters that has no commendation. They are described as being lukewarm, a contrast to two nearby cities that provided water. At their sources, one was cold and refreshing while the other was hot mineral water that was useful for healing. By the time the waters made it to Laodicea, however, they were lukewarm and ineffective for their original purposes.

Thus, the Laodiceans could be said to have been ineffective in their service to the Lord.

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Refining the Discipleship Model

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In my previous post, I discussed a ministry model based on statements about Jesus’ activities in Scripture. There are a handful of repeated statements that summarize Jesus’ activities and these are reflected in the rest of the narratives. The thought was that those summary statements give a grouping of actions that a follower of Christ would want to emulate if we are to be growing in likeness to Him. However, in thinking about those statements more, I noticed one other detail that I think can result in a more effective model.

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A Model for Congregational Discipleship

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As disciples of Jesus, Christians should be growing into His likeness. This means we should become more and more like Him, and it seems this should include all of His attributes, behaviors., and so on. We often study the Scriptures to find these attributes, and different people have produced different models of Jesus’ activities.

However, in addition to the many detailed accounts of them, the gospels include many statements that summarize Jesus’ activities. These tend to repeat the same three things over and over, so perhaps they represent a way to think of His actions in a way that we could grow into.

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Proper Motives

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Jesus often taught the importance of having correct motives, the need for our hearts to be correct and not just our actions. This reinforced the Old Testament prophets who taught that even sacrificing in the temple wasn’t good if one’s heart wasn’t right. The ancient Israelites found this out when, despite their proper sacrifices, God was not blessing them because of unfaithful hearts.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit (motives). Proverbs 16:2 (ESV)

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (ESV)

For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. 2 Corinthians 2:17 (ESV)

In these verses, we see how important it is to always check our motives, and this is no less true when speaking of Christ. It may be that God will honor words spoken to proclaim Him for the benefit of the unbelievers who hear, but if we want to truly walk in the benefits of obedience ourselves, then we need to check our own hearts.

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