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Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue “prepositional truth” by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.
In one of the Bible’s most celebrated verses, the door usually gets all of the attention.
Maybe we should pay more attention to the meal.
Jesus says, in Revelation 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
The Christian art market has long been flooded with pictures of a hopeful Jesus gently rapping on a very American-looking door (usually depicted as having no outside handle), waiting for a response.
It’s an opportunity like no other. Will the resident of this home open the door and make room for one more dinner guest – a guest who has the power to change all of their tomorrows?
The spotlight shines on a preposition we met earlier this month. “I will come in and eat with (META) that person, and they with (META) me.”
It’s hard to overstate the power of “with” in the New Testament. Jesus comes into the world as Immanuel, which means “God with (META) us” (Matthew 1:23). At the end of the Great Commission, Jesus promises that he will be with (META) his disciples until the end of the age (Matthew 28:18). And the repentant thief on the cross will be with (META) Jesus that very day in Paradise (Luke 23:43).
In Revelation 3:20, “with Jesus” takes on extra meaning.
Scottish Bible scholar William Barclay noted that first-century Greeks typically ate three meals a day. Breakfast was a humble affair – perhaps nothing more than a dry crust of bread dipped into wine. Lunch was a picnic snack eaten on the run – a few morsels consumed at a worksite or by the side of the pavement or at a public square.
The word for the evening meal was deipnon, and it was the only sit-down eating experience of the entire day – and the only one enjoyed at home.
When Jesus says, “I will come in and eat with that person,” he uses the Greek verbal form deipnein. In other words, he’s inviting himself to dinner. He’s interested in joining each of us at the place in our lives that is most personal and most intimate.
Note the double emphasis on “with.” Jesus will be with us. And we will be with him. In the Middle East and the classic Mediterranean world, this connotes intense, reciprocal, personal engagement. We see, then, that Jesus is always with his followers – every day in this world and even when “today” takes us into Paradise.
Who is the world wouldn’t open that door and accept his offer of a lifetime?
It appears the folks who originally received this invitation were having a hard time making up their minds.
The Bible’s last book begins with seven correspondences to young congregations in the western part of what is now Turkey. The final letter is to Laodicea, an affluent community in the Lycus River valley. Laodicea was blessed with thriving commercial banking and textile operations. What it didn’t have, however, was a reliable source of clean water.
The proposed remedy came from a pair of aqueducts. One of them was built downhill from Hierapolis, a small town perched on a rise a few miles to the north. Hierapolis was famous for its steaming mineral baths. Water pipes, like the ones pictured above, brought hot water to Laodicea.
Colossae, which was 11 miles to the south, had a generous supply of cold water generated by snow melt from nearby mountains. Laodicean engineers built water pipes to that town as well.
The community now had two excellent sources of water. And the temperatures were a major bonus. Mineral hot springs were valued for their soothing and healing properties, and ice-cold alpine water was simply refreshing.
There was just one problem. By the time the water from Hierapolis had sloshed its way down miles of pipelines, the hot was no longer hot. And the cool water coming 11 miles from Colossae was no longer cool.
Laodicea became notorious for its tepid water. It was neither soothing nor refreshing. It was lukewarm.
That’s Jesus’ characterization of the Laodicean church. In Revelation 3:15 he says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!” Either hot or cold would have been welcome. Middling temperatures were nauseating.
And the consequences? Jesus cuts to the chase in the next verse: “Because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” This is, thankfully enough, the only time in Scripture where someone’s spiritual temperature makes the Son of God want to hurl.
There’s nothing in this text to make us conclude that Jesus favors extremism – that he applauds, for instance, bravado on the Far Left or Far Right. This is a spiritual checkup, not an assessment of political posture or relational energy or social ideology.
The Laodiceans are faltering in their discipleship. It’s half-hearted and half-baked.
Jesus continues, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (3:17).
Is there any hope?
Of course there is. But it requires a decision that a many of us are unwilling to make. Will we or will we not choose to go all-in for Christ?
The late philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard, contemplating the chaos and disorder of so many congregations, once observed that virtually all the turbulence would be swept away if the members of those churches simply made up their minds to follow Jesus.
Will Jesus be the main course of your life? Or just a side dish concerning which you’ll always want to retain the freedom to say, “No thanks, I’m trying to cut back”?
God’s own Son is eager to dine with you, and for you to dine with him.
Open the door.