Diagnosis: Assimilation
Deceptive Wealth
Revelation 3:14–22
Summary: Laodicea’s water arrived lukewarm through aqueducts from Hierapolis, whose hot springs were medicinal, and Colossae, whose cold streams refreshed. Christ’s rebuke compares the church to the city’s water: useless for healing or refreshment. Assimilation to Laodicea’s economic life had made the church good for nothing in particular.
The letter to the church in Laodicea is addressed to a community whose commitment to Christ has been supplanted by a desire for wealth and comfort (Rev 3:14–22). Though they describe themselves as rich, prosperous, and self-sufficient (3:17), Christ makes clear that the church is wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked (3:17). The gap between the Laodiceans’ self-perception and Christ’s assessment of them reflects the depth of the church’s compromise. The church can no longer see what it has become.
This compromise has made the church in Laodicea like undrinkable lukewarm water. Laodicea was situated on a trade route between two cities from which it received its water. Hierapolis to the north had hot springs whose mineral waters were medicinally useful. Colossae to the south had cold streams that refreshed. Laodicea’s own water arrived lukewarm and chemically laden through its aqueducts. The water was no longer useful for healing or refreshment. When Christ says he will spit out the church because they are neither hot nor cold (3:16), he is comparing the church to the city’s water. The church’s compromise has made it like the water Laodicea received—it is water that is of no use.
That compromise likely involved the Laodiceans’ participation in trade guilds, which often required the worship of pagan deities. Where the church in Smyrna seems to have resisted the urge to participate in these guilds (Rev 2:8–11), the wealth of the Laodiceans suggests that they have opted into the industries common to Laodicea: banking, the production of fine black wool, and medicinal eye salve. The letter references each of these in its call for the Laodiceans to recognize their need to depend on Christ (3:18). Though they believe they are rich, Christ calls them to buy his gold refined by fire. They believe they are well-clothed, but need to buy “white garments” from Christ to cover their nakedness. They believe their eyes are healthy, but are in need of Christ’s eye salve to clarify their vision. These products are only available through Christ. Rather than accepting the wealth and prosperity that the city of Laodicea can provide, Christ urges the church to recognize their impoverished state and to recommit themselves to him.
Christ is not abandoning the church despite their willingness to compromise in order to participate in Laodicea’s economic life. He reproves and disciplines them because he loves them (3:19). He waits for the Laodicean church to welcome him in and to dine with him (3:20). The risen Christ is ready to be admitted back into the church even though the Laodiceans have built a church that runs on the resources of the surrounding culture. Christ stands at the door and knocks because the church has built a life that no longer requires his presence.
The church in Laodicea misses what the church in Smyrna grasps: (1) earthly wealth does not make one truly rich (2:9) and (2) living a life of faithfulness is the path to true victory (2:10–11). The Laodiceans need to “be zealous and repent” (3:19), setting aside the trappings of worldly wealth and the pagan worship necessary to obtain it. Their desire for comfort and prosperity narrows their field of vision so they must be reminded that “the one who conquers” will do so like Christ (3:21), not like the world.
Assimilation and the Church Today
Laodicea is the last of the seven churches addressed. While the others are dealing with false teaching and oppression, the Laodiceans don’t have any apparent challenges. In part, the absence of trouble is related to the church’s assimilation to the surrounding culture. They do not have the problems the other churches have because they have not resisted the surrounding culture. By adopting the world’s standards, they have lost any sense of direction, pursuing worldly success rather than faithfulness.
Accepting the ways of the surrounding culture is a problem for the church today as much as it was for the Laodiceans. It is easy to think that there are no implications to the decisions we make. However, it isn’t clear that we can pursue success on the world’s terms without splitting our allegiances. We serve a God who calls us to love him with all we are and have. That love is intended to shape every aspect of our lives so that we live on God’s terms. At times, that will require us to suffer as we wait for the riches waiting for us with Christ (3:21).
For Further Study
Discussion Questions
- 01
The Laodiceans could no longer see what they had become. What aspects of your participation in cultural or economic life have grown so familiar that you’ve stopped examining them theologically?
- 02
Christ describes the Laodiceans as poor, blind, and naked in precisely the areas where they thought they were strong. Where might your perceived strengths actually mask compromise?
- 03
Jesus lived as a first-century craftsman without pursuing earthly prominence. What would it look like to participate fully in your cultural context without making its standards of success your own?
- 04
The Laodiceans do not have the problems the other churches have because they have not resisted the surrounding culture. What problems are you currently not having that might indicate insufficient resistance rather than faithfulness?