Disciplemaking and the Church at Laodicea
Isn’t Laodicea that lukewarm church we encounter in the Apocalypse?
I never knew that Paul addressed those folks through a disciple named Ephaphras in his letter to the Colossians.
Also, I didn’t know that the church in Hierapolis was in the New Testament.
Being an aging Baby Boomer, we’re supposed to know just about everything – at least, that’s what we thought growing up. However, at nearly 80, I’m still discovering things in my Bible. Call me a skim reader, but after hundreds of times through Colossians, I’ve only just discovered the following…
- Paul never got to Colossae.
- Epaphras, a Colossian, planted the church.
- Churches in Hierapolis and Laodicea were the apparent result of Epaphras’ disciplemaking.
- There were churches in 19 cities of Asia Minor that probably have roots in Acts 19.
- Paul more strongly impacted the momentum of the original Jesus Movement in the School of Tyrannus than any other event recorded in the New Testament.
The implications are pretty straightforward. Though the movement kicked off in Jerusalem, it would have died there if persecution hadn’t driven its disciples across the Mediterranean world. Unnamed disciples took the gospel to gentiles in Antioch, and churches survive in that city today. Believers in Antioch launched the first organized missionary movement. However, much-needed momentum came from Paul making disciples for two years while remaining in one spot.
I recently stumbled onto a book called Christian Origins in Ephesus & Asia Minor. The author, Mark Fairchild, first got my attention with beautiful color shots of archaeological digs I’d never heard of. This when most archaeology texts include fuzzy black-and-white photos. But it was the text that changed my outlook.
The book documents 2nd-century church sites spread across Western Turkey. There are 20, including Ephesus, where it all began.
You get a great backstory on each city and a short history of each church, including Ephesus, Colossae, Heirapolis and Laodicea.
The stories of the other 16 churches were what got to me.
Presuming that you accept that Colossae resulted from Paul discipling Epaphras in Acts 19. In that case, logic tells you that these churches, mainly spread along major commercial routes, came from disciplemaking during that two-year stint.
The repercussions of Paul’s stint in a single location are with us today. While he could appoint elders, thus establishing churches in Lystra, Derbe, Iconium and Antioch of Pisidia, he seems to have built the most strength into concentrated geography through longer-term disciplemaking in a single location.
Most of us will never travel the world planting churches. However, we can each make friends with a few young people and engage them through give-and-take conversations in which Jesus disciples everyone involved. The result will be some of our new friends taking the church to as yet unreached people.
For me, this means I need to press into friendships locally and that I need to stop skim reading my Bible. How about you?