Epistle to the Laodiceans

Let God have the use of your house.

Now he said, when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.

Learn to share things with other Christians.

There is a repercussive effect in sharing the word of God.

Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters at Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house.

After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you, in turn, read the letter from Laodicea.

Tell Archippus, see to it that you complete the ministry that you have received in the Lord.

I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.

And these are held sacred in the esteem of the Catholic Church for the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline.

There's also an epistle to the Laodiceans.

You know, we talked about that the other day on the show.

And another to the Alexandrians, both forged in Paul's name to further the heresy of Marcion.

So he believes that Laodiceans and Alexandrians, those are forged.

They're not really written by Paul.

Now, you remember.

Pope Gregory the Great believed that Paul wrote Laodiceans.

What's the earliest complete manuscript for that? Because again, you do have some Oriental Orthodox with some additional books in the New Testament.

And then again, historically, even in the Catholic tradition, you have the Epistle to the Laodiceans, which I just recently had an expert scholar on and we discussed that.

That was in many, many Catholic New Testament manuscripts.

And there are some other differences as well.

Those of Pergamos as teaching things contrary.

Of the Laodiceans he brandeth the riches.

And yet he calleth all to penance and to satisfaction.

What meaneth the apostle when he writeth to the Corinthians thus, Lest when I come I bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lavishness which they have committed.

Such a dramatic presentation certainly should have shown them how seriously they should have taken God's warnings to them.

And to finish today, what kind of dramatisation might someone do today to warn us about, say, being Laodicean, as we read in Revelation 3, verses 14-19? And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, These things, says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.

I could wish you were cold or hot.

So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Paul was so sure about what he did in Ephesus and was telling Timothy that if you can get what Ephesus is all about, and you are going to trust God to get there, to unpack the church at Ephesus, and you will see that that was the only popular church that in the book of Revelation the Lord himself addressed.

we look at all those several churches for for the most part you don't know the other six sima tatara sadis you know laodicea and the rest of them but ephesus came alive again and out of the seven churches the lord addressed in the book of revelation only two of them were connected to apostle paul laodicea Ephesus because Paul was telling the Colossians to read his epistle to the Laodiceans and he told the Laodiceans to read his epistle to the Colossians one of the lost epistles of Paul is the epistle of Paul to the Laodicean which we don't have in your bible so it's lost and i believe it's lost forever maybe when we get to heaven we'll find the content so be careful every time you say something is not biblical but he never said the canon of scripture itself there are missing books there and that is why we need to reconcile things in the light of the rest of the books and by the spirit because so quick at times we say that is not biblical and we also forget that there are some books in the bible that you don't have access to like for instance the book of joshua the books of war have you heard of book of war

You

don't have it.

in short, ranked in some places as equal to the works of St. James or St. Peter or St. Jude.

Among these we may mention specially the Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas, the Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, Apostolic Constitutions, Gospel according to the Hebrews, St. Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans, Epistle of St. Clement, and others.

Why are these not in our Bible today? We shall see it in a minute.

Lastly, there was a third class of books floating about before 397 A.D., which were never acknowledged as of any value in the Church, nor treated as having apostolic authority, seeing that they were obviously spurious and false, full of absurd fables, superstitions, puerilities, and stories and miracles of our Lord and his Apostles which made them a laughing-stock to the world.