In my reading through the Bible, I’ve come to the book of Revelation. When done, I will start over again in Genesis. This has been my Bible-reading practice for many years. It’s simple: just put in the bookmark and pick it up the next morning. Typically, I read two chapters a day.
In Revelation chapters 2-3 the risen, glorified Christ gives instructions, rebukes, praises and promises to seven churches.
It’s a famous passage and probably been the subject of countless sermon-series by pastors. Yet, as always in scripture, there is something new to discover each time you go through it.
In my memory I thought the common theme of these chapters was of oppressed churches under siege amidst paganism. While that was true for the church in Pergamum, which was in a city “where Satan lives” (that city had an idolatrous temple), the other churches had other issues, strengths and weaknesses.
One of the churches, Laodicea, had a problem with riches. They were rich and getting too excited with the things they could buy. This distracted them from spiritual things. They needed to seek spiritual riches instead. This church’s situation seems closest to America–an affluent place that may trust too much in its money.
But while America may need to hear a ‘Laodicea sermon’, others need to hear other sermons.
One of the other churches, Philadelphia, gets a good review from the risen Christ. They were holding steady against spiritual oppression. Christ tells them, “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name,” (Revelation 3:8).
These words brough to mind the church in another country: Cambodia.
Before I became a pastor in Vietnam, my first experience in Southeast Asia was in Cambodia. I taught pastors there (with a translator). Two groups in two places. My missionary friend arranged it. It felt like getting back to the basics of Christianity without of all the church institutional baggage. I loved it.
The first group met in a village in the center of the country. It was the larger of the two groups, and poorer. Some were rice farmers who earned, maybe, $60 a month. They had church meetings in their homes.
Some of them had come through the nightmare of the Cambodian genocide (1975-79). There, the wicked, communist Khmer Rouge killed anyone they didn’t like and put such burdensome rice production quotas on the farmers that they barely had enough to eat for themselves.
The trauma is deep and long-lasting. It has been said that Cambodia suffers from a national case of PTSD.
There’s a lot of poverty and a lot of bad history. There is also spiritual oppression.
Cambodia is very Buddhist. Lots of Buddhist temples. But the religion mostly manifests itself as ancestor worship and appeasement of territorial spirits.
Scattered through the country are small shrines where incense is burnt and food is placed. These are meant to keep the spirit believed to be connected to that land satisfied in the hopes of decreasing trouble and maybe routing a little luck to those who lived there.
The house across the dirt road from where I taught had one of those shrines.
It’s an unhappy mix of fear-based and merit religion. Very far from the Christian gospel of grace, fulfillment and eternal life.
I saw the church in Cambodia as a breath of fresh air. Light in a sea of darkness. Here it was in a country that had been brutalized, had a lot of poverty, had spiritual oppression everywhere, and giving the message of hope and life.
I went back to Cambodia to do a second round of teaching, just like that first trip. I’ve also made other visits.
The church there holds out the truth in a setting of spiritual oppression and poverty.
Perhaps it’s simplistic to say, but America seems to have a Laodicea setting and Cambodia a Philadelphia setting. Each one, the Cambodian church and the American church, planted in its own place, facing its own difficulties. Each one responsible to be faithful and resist evil in their mutual environments.
One thing I realized during my years ministering in Southeast Asia is just how much alike we are. We tend to make too much about different cultures and races, or even different Christian traditions. At root, we are all the same–Christians serving God within our very different environments but with the same encouragement to “overcome”. All seven churches are given a promise, that he who “overcomes” will be given a heavenly reward which will far outshine the trouble experienced in this world. The specific rewards are different church to church, but the encouragement to overcome is the same. We all have the same Lord and the same command.
Being a true Christian is not easy sometimes. You might be misunderstood. You might get in a disagreement or even an argument. You might be called names. You might be blamed when someone overreacts to something you said or did. There seems to be growing opposition to biblical Christianity in America. It’s not like the old days of 40 or 50 years ago. Whether Cambodia or America or somewhere else, we just need to be faithful and overcome.