Laodicea — From self-sufficiency to fellowship

The city that could pay for its own rebuilding

Self-sufficiency had a history of success.

Strabo 12.8.16 praises the region’s sheep wool for its softness and black colour, saying it generated considerable revenue. Textile commerce contributed to Laodicea’s wealth and regional prominence.

Laodicea was an important commercial and financial centre in Phrygia, favoured by intersecting trade routes. Ramsay describes it as a place of banking and exchange, drawing on Cicero’s testimony. Tacitus 14.27 records that after the AD 60 earthquake it rebuilt with its own resources, without Roman aid.

Eye salve was a medicinal preparation applied to the eyes. Strabo 12.8.20 documents an important medical school between Laodicea and Carura. Traditional interpretation connects Christ’s advice with so-called “Phrygian powder”, used in medicinal preparations; however, production of a famous eye salve specifically in Laodicea is not established.

Biblical references

Apocalipse 3:17-19

Sources

Tacitus · Annals 14.27

Strabo · Geography 12.8.16 and 12.8.20, wool and medicine

UNESCO · Laodikeia

W. M. Ramsay (1904) · Laodicea’s commerce, finance and medicine

IVP commentary · Limits of the eye-salve association

The letter reached people gathered in a home

Nympha, shared reading and the invitation to the table.

Colossians 4:15–16 mentions Nympha and the church meeting in her house in its greetings concerning Laodicea. It also requests the exchange and reading of letters between communities. Texts circulated and were heard together.

Homes provided places to gather, welcome visitors and hear letters. Reading took place among people who shared relationships and knew one another’s circumstances.

Biblical references

Colossenses 4:15-16

Apocalipse 3:19-20

Sources

The waters of Hierapolis, Colossae and Laodicea

The three-city interpretation and what archaeology supports.

Hierapolis — hot water: its thermal springs were associated with bathing and relief of bodily ailments. In the traditional comparison, hot water serves a purpose: warming and providing a therapeutic bath.

Colossae — cold water: this interpretation associates the city with fresh water from its mountainous region. Cold water represents a refreshing drink that quenches thirst. In this reading, therefore, “cold” has a positive value; it does not automatically mean a person without faith.

Laodicea — lukewarm water: the traditional explanation supposes that water piped into the city arrived tepid and unpleasant to drink. It would provide neither the effect of a hot bath nor the refreshment of cold water. Rejecting it from the mouth helps visualise Christ’s warning.

Laodicea had a water supply system. Drawing on archaeological evidence, Wilson (2023; 2025) questions the idea that its water was especially inferior to its neighbours’. The connection between the three cities and the letter’s temperatures is a debated traditional interpretation.

Biblical references

Apocalipse 3:15-16

Sources

Mark Wilson (2023) · Laodicea’s water

Mark Wilson (2025) · Rethinking the temperature metaphor

Research · Laodicea’s imagery

Cold, hot and lukewarm

Reference

Apocalipse 3:15-16

Sources

Research · Laodicea’s imagery

As the Amen and faithful and true witness, Christ offers an assessment the church must trust above its own self-image. Christ assesses the church’s works: he calls it lukewarm and threatens to vomit it out of his mouth. The image expresses rejection of the community’s condition. The next verse explains the problem: it thinks it is rich and needs nothing but fails to recognise its poverty, blindness and nakedness.

The comparison with useful water, explained in the historical context, gives positive value to both cold and hot. Another reading understands hot as zeal, cold as estrangement and lukewarm as compromise without commitment; there is also the reading of drinks served at a meal. In each proposal, the letter’s explicit call is to abandon self-sufficiency, be zealous and repent.

Historical context

The waters of Hierapolis, Colossae and Laodicea

Gold, garments and eye salve

Reference

Apocalipse 3:17-18

Sources

Christ answers the claim to wealth with three needs: fire-refined gold, white garments and eye salve to see. Each offer answers the preceding diagnosis — poverty, nakedness and blindness — and must be received from him.

The images gain force in a city associated with wealth, textiles and medicine. The community needed to recognise what its resources could not give it: worth before God, garments to cover its shame and the ability to see its own condition. White also belongs to Revelation’s language of purity and victory.

Historical context

The city that could pay for its own rebuilding

Correction, door, table and throne

Reference

Apocalipse 3:19-22

Sources

Provérbios 3:11-12

Hebreus 12:5-11

The rebuke arises from love and calls for repentance. The invitation to fellowship culminates in the promise of sharing Christ’s victory.

Proverbs 3:11–12 compares the Lord’s discipline with the correction of a father who loves his child; Hebrews 12 returns to that passage. The rebuke seeks repentance and fellowship. Whoever hears and opens the door is invited to dine with Christ; the conqueror is promised a share in his throne, just as he conquered and sat down with the Father.

Historical context