Gold, clothes and eye salve

Laodicea was proud of itself. After a severe earthquake around the year 60, the city rebuilt itself without help from Rome, writes the Roman historian Tacitus. It had banks, it sold glossy black wool, and a well-known medical school stood nearby. Many interpreters think Christ strikes the city at exactly those points.

You have everything, the church thinks. But Christ sees poverty, nakedness and blindness. The most painful part: you don't know it. Yet this is counsel, not a verdict. Come and buy from me, he says.