📖 Biblical Definition
Laodicea was a wealthy, complacent Roman city in the Lycus valley of Asia Minor — famous for its banking (Cicero cashed checks there), its black wool industry, and its renowned eye-salve school of medicine. Yet the church there received the seventh and most severe of Christ’s seven letters: "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot... So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth" (Revelation 3:14-22). The risen Christ counsels them to buy gold tried in the fire, white raiment, and eyesalve — the very things the city prided itself on producing. The letter ends with the most famous invitation in Revelation: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock."
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Wealthy lukewarm city of Revelation 3.
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The wealthy Roman provincial city in Asia Minor (modern Denizli, Turkey), known for banking, textiles, and eye-salve; recipient of the seventh and most severe of Christ's letters in Revelation 3:14-22 — neither hot nor cold, lukewarm, content with self-sufficiency, blind to spiritual poverty; offered the strongest call: 'Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.'
📖 Key Scripture
Revelation 3:15-17 — "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot... So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."
Revelation 3:20 — "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him."
Colossians 4:16 — "And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Read narrowly as ancient warning; missing how perfectly it diagnoses comfortable Western Christianity.
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No major postmodern redefinition of this place. The risk is that the geographic-symbolic resonance Scripture builds with it gets lost — modern readers skim past place-names that the biblical writers used as shorthand for whole histories.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek Laodikeia.
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['Greek', 'G2993', 'Laodikeia', 'Laodicea']
['Greek', 'G5513', 'chliaros', 'lukewarm']
Usage
"Read Revelation 3 over your own church."
"Lukewarm is worse than cold."