In the early 1850s William Holman Hunt painted The Light of the World, the picture of Christ at night with a lantern, knocking at a door grown over with ivy. There is no handle on the outside: the door can only be opened from within. For many readers the picture is the verse, and the verse was first said to the church at Laodicea, a congregation that thought it needed nothing. The door being knocked on is theirs.
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:20 (KJV)
A letter to a named church
Revelation 2 and 3 are seven short letters to seven churches in Asia, and Laodicea gets the last. “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write,” it begins, six verses above the knocking, and every word between is addressed to people who already belonged to a church. He tells them they are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, and then he quotes them to themselves.
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Revelation 3:17 (KJV)
He offers a remedy in three items, and each one answers a word they have just been called. They think they are rich, so he counsels them to buy “gold tried in the fire.” They are naked, so he offers “white raiment.” They are blind, so he offers “eyesalve.” Strabo, writing about the region, says its sheep gave a soft, raven-black wool that brought the city a splendid revenue. A town whose black wool paid it so well is offered white to put on. Tacitus records that when an earthquake flattened Laodicea around the year 60, the city rebuilt from its own resources, without help from Rome. “Have need of nothing” was a thing that place had proved in public.
Of the seven churches, Laodicea is the only one with nothing good named. Ephesus is praised for labor and patience, Smyrna is told in a parenthesis “but thou art rich,” Pergamos held fast his name, Thyatira is credited with charity and faith, Sardis still has a few who have not defiled their garments, and Philadelphia kept his word. The pairing with Smyrna is exact. Smyrna is poor and is told it is rich. Laodicea says it is rich and is told it is poor.
Two doors in the same chapter
Twelve verses above the knocking, the letter to Philadelphia has a door as well.
I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.
Revelation 3:8 (KJV)
The church with a little strength is given a door nobody can shut. The church that says it has everything has Christ knocking at a shut one. The letter gives Philadelphia’s reason in its own words: “thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word.” Laodicea said it was rich and had need of nothing.
The verse just before the knock sets the tone: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” Nobody writes that to a stranger, and the knock follows it.
The question it asks
The verse does reach one person. “If any man hear my voice” is singular and conditional, which is why the familiar use, a call to a single heart, is a narrowing more than a mistake. Hunt got one thing right: in the verse, too, the door has to be opened by the one inside. What a painting of one door cannot show is who the letter was written to.
So yes, it can still be said to one person, at a camp or an altar call, because the verse itself says “if any man.” It fits best the one already inside the church who thinks all is well, because that is who it was first said to. For someone who has never come at all, the book’s own call is Revelation 22:17, and the two can stand side by side.
The letter also ends with a line meant for more than one town: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Other churches were meant to overhear Laodicea. The question it puts to any reader inside a church is a plain one: where am I saying “I have need of nothing”? It may be a bank balance, a busy calendar, a good name in the congregation, or a faith that has gone comfortable. Any of those can keep a door shut while everything inside looks fine. Be still, and know that I am God is also heard as a private word, though it was most likely first aimed at nations at war. Both verses still reach one person, and they reach that person best when the first hearers are kept in view.
For the outsider, the book has a wider invitation near its end, in Revelation 22:17: “And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” For the insider who thinks the house is doing fine, there is Revelation 3:20.
What he promises, once the door opens, is supper at one table, offered to anyone in a church that thought it had everything.