Friday
Friday
The Letter to Philadelphia—Mission
See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.
Revelation 3:8
In writing to the church in Philadelphia, Jesus describes himself as holding the key of David, with which he is able both to open closed doors and to close open ones. In consequence, he could say to the Philadelphian church, “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut” (v. 8). The most likely meaning of this open door is that it is a door of opportunity, especially of opportunity for mission, since the apostle Paul several times resorted to this metaphor in his letters. For example, on his return from his first missionary journey Paul reported that God had “opened the door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27), while on his third missionary journey he wrote that “a great door for effective work” had opened to him in Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:9).
In the case of Philadelphia, perhaps the open door was a reference to the city’s strategic location. Situated in a broad and fertile valley, it commanded the trade routes in all directions. Sir William Ramsay, the early-twentieth-century archaeologist, wrote that it had been the founder’s intention in the second century BC “to make it a centre of the Graeco-Asiatic civilization and a means of spreading the Greek language and manners…. Philadelphia was a missionary city from the beginning.” So what the city had been for Greek culture it was now to be for the Christian gospel. It was built on one of the great Roman roads, which thrust its way like an arrow into the heart of the interior. No one could shut this door. Let the church of Philadelphia seize its opportunity and go out boldly with the Good News.
Thank God there are many open doors for mission in the world today. But we must also face the reality of closed doors elsewhere. One is a legal door, the power of hostile governments that curtail religious liberty. Another is a cultural door, the power of alien ideas that prejudice people’s minds. A third is an ethnic door, the power of national loyalties that confuse religion with patriotism. We need to keep our eyes on the great key in Christ’s hand.
For further reading: Revelation 3:7–13