{"id":17756,"date":"2009-02-13T20:50:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-14T02:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=17756"},"modified":"2020-01-30T09:16:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T15:16:54","slug":"did-laodicea-have-cold-and-hot-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-laodicea-have-cold-and-hot-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Laodicea have cold and hot water?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>In Revelation when John or well Jesus is addressing the churches, I have a question about the last church, Laodicea, in Revelation 3:15-16. I have heard many rumors about what the verse means. One says the passage means just what you read. The other is there were a hot spring and a cold mountain river in this city and that the cold and hot could be used, but when they ran together it was lukewarm and couldn&#8217;t be used for anything. Do you know if there is any truth to this claim? I heard it from Bible scholars but it&#8217;s all been word of mouth. I haven&#8217;t seen any documentation on paper. Just scholar&#8217;s words who don&#8217;t cite anything from and people who teach at colleges and stuff.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>Laodicea was a wealthy city. When an earthquake destroyed parts of the city in 61 A. D., it refused aid from Rome and used its own resources to rebuild. It was a banking and financial center, which explains its available resources. It also had a large clothing operation. The sheep in the area were noted for their soft, violet-black, glossy wool. A famous medical center noted for its treatments of the eyes and ears was also located in this town.<\/p>\n<p>The city was a popular retirement area for the wealthy. Because these people had retired, they concluded they had served their purpose and had reached their goal. As a result, they were indifferent to social issues. One historian, Ramsay, describes Laodicea as a city of no extremes; a city that had no peculiar characteristics unless this lack of character was its character.&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Laodicea_ad_Lycum\">Wikipedia<\/a>&nbsp;has a good summary of its history. A series of dictionary and encyclopedia articles on Laodicea can be found at&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/net.bible.org\/dictionary.php?word=Laodicea\">NetBible<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The water supply for the city came from hot mineral springs about five miles from the city. The warm, sulfur water was nauseating to the taste and smell. You can see modern pictures of the old Roman piping system at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleplaces.com\/laodicea\/\">BiblePlaces.com<\/a>. An excellent video clip showing the ruins and talking about the water system can be found on&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.allaboutarchaeology.org\/ancient-laodicea-faq.htm\">All About Archaeology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus, in Revelation, was not pleased with the tepid Christians in Laodicea and he compares them to their lukewarm water supply. He also insults them by calling them poor, blind, and naked &#8212; the exact opposite of what they were known for in the world. See&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/the-revelation-given-to-john\/the-message-to-the-church-in-laodicea\/\">Laodicea from the Revelation study<\/a>&nbsp;for details about this passage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: In Revelation when John or well Jesus is addressing the churches, I have a question about the last church, Laodicea, in Revelation 3:15-16. I have heard many rumors about what the verse means. One says the passage means just what you read. The other is there were a hot spring and a cold mountain&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[135,102],"class_list":["post-17756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-laodicea","tag-revelation"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24902,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-does-laodicea-mean\/","url_meta":{"origin":17756,"position":0},"title":"What does Laodicea mean?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What does Laodicea mean? Answer: Laodicea is the name of a city in Asia Minor that wasn't too far from Colosse. The name of the city is a compound Greek word:\u00a0laos\u00a0means people, nation, or crowd;\u00a0dike\u00a0means custom, law, judgment, penalty, or punishment, depending on the context. From that, most conclude\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47938,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-girlfriend-is-distancing-herself-from-me-but-she-says-nothing-is-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":17756,"position":1},"title":"My girlfriend is distancing herself from me, but she says nothing is wrong","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What does it mean when your fiancee suddenly seems to have lost interest in you? She no longer texts as often as she used to and whenever I ask her if anything is wrong she says no. I've told her it's all right if she doesn't love me anymore,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34636,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-was-the-church-in-smyrna-established\/","url_meta":{"origin":17756,"position":2},"title":"When was the church in Smyrna established?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Brother Hamilton, Our local fellowship of congregations has been impacted by the doctrine of Preterism, with a number of problems caused by one individual in particular who has garnered a small but aggressive group of followers holding to Max King's teachings. In an article on your site, \"70 A.D.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18079,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/given-the-state-of-the-church-today-of-course-christians-are-not-required-to-attend-services\/","url_meta":{"origin":17756,"position":3},"title":"Given the state of the church today, of course, Christians are not required to attend services","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What you are saying about Christians who are not going to church are not saved is utter rubbish. It's all one-sided. I Kings 18:21 tells us not to limp between two opinions. Amos 3:3 says how can two walk together except they be agreed. II Corinthians 6:14-17 says come\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":840,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-paul-ever-in-colosse\/","url_meta":{"origin":17756,"position":4},"title":"Was Paul ever in Colosse?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is there any information or evidence that Paul was ever in Colossae? Answer: Paul did work in the region where Colosse was located, which was called Asia at that time in an area called Phrygia (Acts 16:6; 18:23). Paul also taught in Ephesus and the Bible tells us \"that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25000,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-letter-to-laodicea-really-refreshed-my-spirit\/","url_meta":{"origin":17756,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;The Letter to Laodicea&#8221; really refreshed my spirit","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I want to thanks your words in \"The Letter to Laodicea.\" They really refresh my spirit with joy. We should have more ministers sharing our thoughts with each other. Especially the last paragraphs commenting about Apostle Paul\u2019s motive for Philemon\u2019s epistle and his ways to ensure the right thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}