Spiritual Lukewarmness

“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation. “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
(Revelation 3:14-22 ESV)

To many Christians these verses are a source of fear and uneasiness, especially when one fears that they have become lukewarm in their spiritual walk. Whenever one talks about the issue of spiritual lukewarmness, it is only a matter of time before the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22 comes up. Although few people realize that there are actually two ways of reading the passage. The first and more common way at the moment is to view the hot water as the Christians who are “on fire for Jesus”, the cold water as the lost that need to be saved and lukewarm water as the Christians who are not “on fire for Jesus” that make Jesus want to vomit. The second way and the one that I favor, is to view the passage within the historical context of the the city Laodicea. In short Laodicea was a very rich trade city build upon the junctions of major trade routes. The city was famous for its textiles, medical schools with its well known salve treating eye disease and its banks. Yet the city’s major weakness was that it was far away from any water supply, which had to be piped in through Roman aqueducts. The cold water was brought in from Colossae, which was ten miles away and the hot water came from the hot springs at Hierapolis, which were six miles away; both of which were lukewarm by the time the reached Laodicea. Thus it appears that Jesus was poking fun at Laodicea’s water supply. As the rest of His rebuke of the Laodicean church attacks what they through were their strengths, by them naked, blind and poor. So following this trend of interpretation, our next step is to take a closer look at the water. Cold water in general is used to stimulate and refresh, like washing one’s face with cold water in the morning or how nice it is to drink a glass of cold water on a hot day. Hot water has relaxing and soothing properties, as well as being useful for cooking and cleaning, like how relaxing in a hot tub sooths a sore body and lets not forget about needing hot water to brew tea. Lukewarm water on the other hand is not known for being good for anything useful. Although lukewarm water can give one an upset stomach and possibly vomiting when drank. Which goes to show why we normally chill or heat our beverages to some extend, instead of drinking them at room temperature. With that being said, I do not think the question is if should we be cold or hot as both have their uses as both cold and hot water are needed. Just like a Roman Bath has both a hot pool where people start out in to relax, it also has a cold pool to plunge into to cool down as its dangerous to remain in hot water too long despite the proven health benefits of hot tubs. Thus both are needed as it was a necessity for one spending an afternoon at the Roman baths to move from pool to pool. Also consider the typical water cooler filled with spring water, which has 3 faucets: one is blue and gives cold water for drinking, another is red and gives hot water for making tea or hot chocolate and the last one is white and gives lukewarm water yet is pretty much never used. Thus I think the point being made is that as Christians we should be useful to Jesus and His church in a way fitting our gifts, abilities and circumstances; rather than become indifferent and do nothing.

Finally the question comes up of what should one do when they discover that they have been in a lukewarm spiritual slump for a while that they are not sure how to break. To which I think the best answer is found within Luke 18:9-14: the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector praying in the temple. As simply being honest with God about with the situation we’ve fallen into and the sin of living as if He didn’t exist is clearly the best response. Especially since it wasn’t even possible to hid it from God to begin with, as He knew that we had fallen into a lukewarm slump before we realized it ourselves. As we are all stumble and fall into sin again and again as taught in Romans 7:14-25, yet God still loves us and wants us to get up again to start following Him again. In reality the worse thing we can do is that of the Pharisee and refuse to admit our sin nature by acting as if everything is fine with us spiritually, instead of being honest with God and confessing our sins to Him as He is faithful and will forgive us as taught in 1 John 1:7-10.