Paul wrote the Christians at Laodicea assembled for worship in the house of Nymphas ( Colossians 4:15) probably under the presidency of Archippus ( Revelation 3:17). Prom the Epistle to the Colossians we may gather that when St. He had great heart-conflict for those of Laodicea ( Colossians 3:1), and in proof of his earnest solicitude he addressed a letter to them ( Colossians 4:16), in all probability the epistle we call the Epistle to the Ephesians. He knew their special temptations to the worship of inferior mediators, and to spiritual paralysis springing from wordly prosperity and intellectual pride. Paul took the deepest possible interest the believers there were constantly in his mind. (See Note on Colossians 2:1.) But it was a Church in which St. Paul in his journeyings throughout Phrygia (see Acts 16:6 Acts 18:23) yet, on the other hand, Phrygia was a vague term, and the language of Colossians 2:1 is most generally understood to imply that the Apostle had never personally visited either Colossae or Laodicea. Paul ( Colossians 1:5-8) suggests that the churches of Colossae and the neighbourhood first received Christianity from the preaching of Epaphras, though it seems strange that so important a city, lying hard upon the great Roman road from Ephesus to the east, should have been passed over by St. 60) they were able to carry on the work of rebuilding without applying, as many of the neighbouring towns were compelled to do, to the Imperial Treasury for aid. Prosperity in trade had so enriched the population that when their city suffered in the great earthquake (A.D. It shared with Thyatira and Sardis in the dye trade the woods grown in the neighbourhood were famous for their quality and the rich blackness of their colour. It had borne in earlier times the names of Diospolis and afterwards Rhoas. It received its name from Laodice, wife of Antiochus the second king of Syria, by whom it was rebuilt and beautified. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) Laodicea.-Situated half way between Philadelphia and Colossae, and not far from Hierapolis.
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