About Jesus  -  Steve Sweetman

Church Is Not A Meeting

Due to Covid 19, governments have shut down Sunday church meetings.  President Trump and many American church-goers are demanding the re-opening of Sunday meetings so, as they say, "people can practice their faith."  If practicing faith solely revolves around, or depends on, a Sunday meeting, then one misunderstands what practicing faith means. 

More often than not, the New Testament shows that the practicing of faith is an activity that takes place outside of a meeting.  It's what Jesus commanded His apostles to do when He said "go into all the world" (Matthew 28:19).  Hiding in the upper room (Acts 1:13) was not an option.  Taking the gospel from the upper room into the local community, as is described in Acts 2, was how the believers began to practice their faith.    

I'm not minimizing the importance of meetings.  I'm putting them in their proper Biblical perspective, which I believe is reflected in Hebrews 10:25.  

" ... not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Hebrews 10:25 does tell us to not stop meeting together, but it says much more than that.  The Greek text translates the word "episynagoge" into English as "meeting together."  "Episynagoge" is not a Greek word as you might expect.  It's a Hebrew word that has been transliterated and inserted into the Greek text.  It's a word rooted in the ancient Hebrew word "synagoge" which represented the community of Jews living in supportive relationships with each other and with their God.  The concept of community, when it was actually practiced, was central to the life of the individual Jew.    

The Jewish Christians to whom the book of Hebrews was written would have understood Hebrews 10:25 to say that they must not separate themselves from those to whom Jesus had placed them in supportive relationships in Christian community.  It was within communal relationships where they practiced, or put into action, their faith in Jesus.   

Hebrews 10:25 ends with reference to the end of this age, which many believe is an age of anti-Christ dominance that imposes much hardship on the Christian.  It is for this reason that Christians cannot afford to forsake living in supportive relationships as they practice their faith within the Community of Christ.     

The practicing of faith in Jesus is a daily activity that is performed by ourselves and with those to whom Jesus has placed us alongside in the Community of Christ, the church.  As "the Day" approaches, the practicing of our faith within the context of Christian community is a necessity of life.