Author Archives: sgibson

Church Meetings – Part 4: Where Should Churches Meet?

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As I stated in a previous article in this series, our modern view of church is typically associated with meeting in a building. We talk about, “Going to church.” By that we usually mean that we’re going to travel to a building and meet with other Christians for a formal assembly of believers. What do the Scriptures reveal about this?

There is no established place for Christians to assemble in the Bible.  The biblical text is clear.  They met in homes.  There was no “church building” for them to meet in. 

[As an aside, I have heard preachers use 1 Corinthians 11:18 as referring to a church building, “For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.” (KJV) There are two issues with the phrase “in the church”. First, the Greek preposition en, translated “in” has a broad array of meanings, depending on the context. Nearly every other English translation (NKJV, NASB, ESV, NIV, HCSB, RSV, et al.) renders it “as” which makes more sense in context. Second, there is no article (“the”) in the Greek text. The absence of the article usually means that it should be translated one of two ways: (1) “as church” indicating the character or quality of the church or (2) “as a church” indicating that the church is indefinite and not a specific one or location. (For you Greek students out there, I’m simplifying this for a general audience. It is understood that there are grammatical constructions which would make the phrase definite and thus require the article in English, but that is not the case here.) Again, context would indicate that it should be “as a church”. The only translation which does not follow this is the KJV. Now I love the KJV, but the Greek text trumps it.]

Again, I’m not saying that having a building is wrong.  I’m just saying that it’s foreign to the Bible.  So, if I meet with Christians at my workplace, even for a few minutes, to share, pray, and maybe even discuss Scripture, is that an assembly of the church?  Think about it before you answer.  We weren’t in a church building, but that’s not a biblical requirement.  We didn’t sing songs, but that’s not a biblical requirement either.  We didn’t take an offering, but since you cannot find even a single reference to a church in the Bible taking an offering for their own use, that’s not an issue either. 

Could it be that Hebrews 10:25 could refer to something other than our traditional concept of a church assembly?  The Greek word for “assembling” (episunagoge) refers to a “gathering together in one place”.  It does not speak to the number of people or a building or a need to have a pastor present or singing or preaching and it certainly does not refer to a denomination.  The context is that we “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works”.  (Heb. 10:24)  And remember, Jesus made a propositional statement in Matthew 18:20 that where 2 or 3 are gathered that He’s there.  It’s something to think about.

In conclusion, an assembly of believers (a church) can occur anywhere. Our concept of “going to church” is shaped by our contemporary view of it. The biblical text requires Christians meeting together and that can occur anywhere Christians are assembled.

Church Meetings – Part 3: When Should Churches Meet?

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Sunday has been the traditional day when Christians come together as a church to worship. But what is the standard in the Bible? Contrary to popular belief, there is no established day or time in the Bible for the church to assemble.

Now I know what you’re thinking. The Bible shows that the early church met on Sunday, right? Well, I think we’re stretching the biblical text to get to that conclusion. If you search the Scriptures for any reference to Sunday (as in “the first day of the week”), you will find that it occurs 8 times. Five of those are in reference to the resurrection of Jesus (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). Another in John 20:19, references the disciples in the Upper Room on the evening of the resurrection. I would argue that none of these 6 verses have any bearing on a church service. After all, I believe the Church was founded in Acts 2, so it wasn’t in existence yet. Furthermore, there is nothing in the text indicating that Jesus intended for His followers to continue to meet on that day. Please read it for yourself.

Another verse is Acts 20:7, which states that the disciples came together on the first day of the week. There it is! See! That’s when the church normally met, right? However, that same verse states that Paul preached until midnight. I highly doubt that anyone is going to say that a service ending time of midnight is normative for the church. But go ahead if you want to. (One of my pet peeves is people taking one part of a passage and applying it to Christians while completely ignoring the rest of it.) Acts 20:7 simply records what happened at that meeting. It says nothing about what is normal for a church service.

The final passage is 1 Cor. 16:1-2, which states that the Corinthians were to save money to minister to Christians in another locality. Paul advised them to set aside a portion on the 1st day of the week. The Greek text makes it clear that each individual was to keep his portion by him, not at a church building, bank, or other communal storage area. (The Greek phrase is par’ heauto titheto thesaurizon which I would roughly translate as “storing it up, place it beside you”.) The concept was that when Paul showed up, it would be ready and each person could just give him what they had saved. That passage says nothing about a church meeting.

Another phrase, “Lord’s day” occurs in Revelation 1:10. Most agree that this likely means Sunday, but John was by himself on the isle of Patmos, so it cannot possibly refer to a church assembly either.

So meeting on a Sunday can be argued from tradition, but the scriptural evidence is lacking. Even in Acts 2, they met daily (vs. 46), but I don’t think that was a formal meeting. They went from house to house. Of course, I’m not saying that meeting on a Sunday is wrong. It’s just that it’s not prescribed by Scripture. So if a group of Christians form a church and want to meet on Friday night or a Tuesday morning for worship, there’s nothing wrong with that from a biblical perspective.

Sermon Shorts from Spurgeon – Sermon 11: The People’s Christ

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Christ was chosen out of the people—that he might know our wants and sympathize with us. You know the old tale, that one half the world does not know how the other half lives; and that is very true. I believe some of the rich have no notion whatever of what the distress of the poor is. They have no idea of what it is to labor for their daily food. They have a very faint conception of what a rise in the price of bread means. They do not know anything about it; and when we put men in power who never were of the people, they do not understand the art of governing us. But our great and glorious Jesus Christ is one chosen out of the people; and therefore he knows our wants. Temptation and pain he suffered before us; sickness he endured, for when hanging upon the cross, the scorching of that broiling sun brought on a burning fever; weariness—he has endured it, for weary he sat by the well; poverty—he knows it, for sometimes he had not bread to eat, save that bread of which the world knows nothing; to be houseless—he knew it, for the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but he had not where to lay his head. My brother Christian, there is no place where thou canst go, where Christ has not been before thee, sinful places alone excepted. In the dark valley of the shadow of death thou mayest see his bloody footsteps—footprints marked with gore; ay, and even at the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, thou shalt, when thou comest hard by the side, say, “There are the footprints of a man: whose are they?” Stooping down, thou shalt discern a nail-mark, and shalt say. “Those are the footsteps of the blessed Jesus.” He hath been before thee; he hath smoothed the way; he hath entered the grave, that he might make the tomb the royal bedchamber of the ransomed race, the closet where they lay aside the garments of labor, to put on the vestments of eternal rest. In all places whithersoever we go, the angel of the covenant has been our forerunner; each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel.

From the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 1, Sermon 11 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

https://ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons01/sermons01.x.html

Sermon Shorts from Spurgeon – Sermon 10: The Kingly Priesthood of the Saints

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We are priests, because priests are divinely chosen persons, and so are we. “No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” But we have that calling and election; we were all ordained to it from the foundations of the world. We were predestinated to be priests, and in process of time we had a special effectual call, which we could not and did not resist, and which at last so overcame us, that we became at once the priests of God. We are priests, divinely constituted. When we say we are priests, we do not talk as certain parties do, who say they are priests, wishing thereby to arrogate to themselves a distinction. I always have an objection—I must state it strongly—to calling a clergyman, or any man that preaches, a priest. We are no more so than you are. All saints are priests. But, for a man to stand up and say he is a priest, any more than those he preaches to, is a falsehood. I detest the distinction of clergy and laity. I like scriptural priestcraft; for that is the craft or work of the people, who are all priests; but all other priestcraft I abhor. Every saint of the Lord is a priest at God’s altar, and is bound to worship God with the holy incense of prayer and praise. We are priests, each one of us, if we are called by divine grace; for thus we are priests by divine constitution.

From the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 1, Sermon 10 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

https://ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons01/sermons01.ix.html

Church Meetings – Part 2: What Constitutes a Church?

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In our culture here in the U.S. and in other places as well, a church is often associated with a building. We talk about going to “church” and what we mean by that is that we’re going to go to the church building and worship with other people who meet in that church building. In addition, you will find multiple “churches” in a given geographical area. Typically there are different denominations, such as Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. who meet in different church buildings. Depending on the size of the city or locality, there can be multiple Baptist churches, Methodist churches, etc. However, you will not find that type of occurrence in the Bible.

The concept of having many local churches in a given geographical area is foreign to the Bible. In the Bible, a church isn’t a building. Rather, it is Christians who assemble together. A local church in the Bible includes all the Christians in a given geographical area. Furthermore, there are no denominations in the Bible. I’m not saying that it’s wrong, I’m just saying that there was no “First Baptist Church of Corinth”, “First Presbyterian Church of Corinth”, “Corinthian Methodist Fellowship”, etc.  There was one “church” in Corinth, which was actually a sizable city for its time.  Churches at that time met in homes, in synagogues, in the open air, or wherever they could.

What you have in the Bible is one “church” per locality.  Even when Paul wrote to Galatia, which was actually a larger region, he wrote to the “churches” in that geographical area.  And here’s the point: Those churches must have had some interaction or Paul couldn’t have been confident that the epistle would have made it to them all. 

The Bible shows one “church” at Rome, one at Ephesus, etc.  Given this, why isn’t there more cooperation of Christians within a geographical area, especially churches of like faith and practice?  And even the ones who don’t practice exactly alike could work together in evangelistic efforts, charity work, and other endeavors.

I used to live in NC in a town of about 16,000 people.  There were over 50 churches!  And most of those were Baptist or Methodist.  (I like to joke that even the Catholic church was Baptist: “St. John the Baptist Catholic Church”.  I’m not kidding.)  I had met people who went to other churches and there were true Christians who loved the Lord in various churches. But we rarely, if ever, interacted with the other churches.  If anything, we competed with them.  I ask: Is that what Jesus intended for His church to be?

It seems obvious from the Epistles that God wants Christians to communicate and work together, regardless of where they meet for regular worship. Just like Paul could write to the churches in Galatia and have confidence that his epistle would make it to all of those churches, likewise churches today should have some interaction based upon their joint faith in Jesus Christ.