The church at Laodicea was a stark reminder of what is happening to our society today. How is it possible that a church in AD 90 is a window into our culture today? Jesus dictated 7 letters to 7 churches in Asia and they had issues that resonate throughout the church age that started at Pentecost and will end when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to take his church home. Not only do they resonate and apply to the problems of churches today, the letters are written in a sequence that mirrors the sequence of the ages in church history. The church at Laodicea was written last and it emblemizes the problems of the modern, liberal, complacent church.

While this may seem farfetched, consider that there are clues in the letter that point to many issues that have relevance today and some that have only become problems in recent times, suchas:

• A belief that truth is relative so the Bible couldn’t really be stating univeral truth as it claims
• A heresy that God did not create the world at all
• The believe that natural history progresses as a uniform process unchanged by catastrophes and divine intervention
• A church that is self satisfied and complacent, rich in material things (applies to western churches in developed countries) but spiritually blind and lukewarm toward Jesus Christ
• Belief in the church that there are may ways to God and that Jesus is not the only way.
• There would be churches that serve Jesus in name only and deny the power

The class was lively today and I’m posting as usual the notes, the presentation and the audio recording of the session. The class voted to have one more session where we’ll study how the patterns of the letters to the seven churches are repeated elsewhere in the scripture and how the letters line up with other writings. If you’re in the San Fernando Valley area, please stop by next Sunday at 9:00 AM.

Enjoy,
Gary

Class 5 Outline
Class 5 – Presentation on Laodicea
Class 5 Audio Recording