Author's Preface
1. Accepting Or Uniting
   
2. Who Is A Christian?
   
3. "Why Don't You Leave The Church of Christ?"
   
4. The Iniquity Of The Fathers
   
5. Our Judicial System
   
6. "You Are My People Now"
   
7. Serving "Otherwise Than As Prescribed"
   
8. Does Baptize Really Mean To Immerse
   
9. Our Relationship Through Baptism
   
10. Those Gospel Meetings
    
11. A Prelude To Worship
    
12. Worshipping In Spirit And Truth
    
13. The Forbidden Prayer
    
14. "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray"
    
15. Communion Prayers
    
16. Communion With Bread, Wine, And Money
    
17. Thursday Is The Lord's Day Too!
    
18. Not Forsaking The Assembly
    
19. Acts 20:7 One More Time
    
20. Our Father Who Art Where?
    
21. Does Nature Reveal God's Love
    
22. Copyrighted: All Rights Reserved
    
23. Don't Pour Water On Them
    
24. The Remaining Restriction For Women
    
25. Some Questions About Revelation
    
26. Must One Fully Repent Before Baptism?
    
27. Nicodemus In Context
    
28. Our Respected Myths Of Religion
    
29. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

"We are commanded not to forsake the assembly on the first day of the week. When you miss a meeting, you sin."

Does that sound familiar? Especially in the middle half of this century, Hebrews 10:25 was used and misused by wellmeaning disciples to intimidate consciences in an effort to enforce attendance to all congregational gatherings. We came to measure a person's faithfulness mostly by frequency of attendance and to judge the vitality of a congregation by its statistics.

In our sincere zeal we injected into this passage a number of misdirected concepts. Being legalists, it is not surprising that we looked upon attendance as fulfilling our duty even though the assembly attended might have edified little. Overlooking the emphasis on exhortation, we made the meetings into strictly regulated "worship services" in performing our perceived "five items of worship." Being accustomed to modern ritualistic assemblies on Sundays, we read those elements into this passage. We made not forsaking to mean don't miss a service. We demanded that, when the elders set a schedule of meetings, it was a sin to miss even one of them. "They have authority to set them," we reasoned.

In my childhood the church met only on Sunday mornings. That seemed to have met the requirements. But during my teenage years, the congregation added classes, Sunday evening meetings, and midweek gatherings. Each of these assemblies then became obligatory, or at least our consciences were intimidated in that direction. If failure to attend these extra gatherings was forsaking the assembly, then the elders caused many to stumble by adding them!

By reading our ideas into it we made Hebrews 10:25 into a club with which to beat disciples into compliance with a standard of faithfulness set by fellowdisciples.

Let us look again at that favorite prooftext to see what it means and does not mean.

Without being too tedious, let us scan the context of this passage. I trust that you are as familiar as I am with the Hebrews epistle. The Jewish disciples had three special problems with which to deal. First, there was the question as to the validity of their change from their national and cultural Judaism to Christ. Second, they were being persecuted because of their change. Third, there was the impending destruction of Jerusalem which would finalize God's rejection of national Israel and confirm this new spiritual kingdom. The believers would need much encouragement because these matters would test their faith and tempt them to turn back from Christ.

In view of this we see exhortations dispersed throughout the epistle. They were urged to pay close attention to what they had heard to prevent their drifting from it (2:1). No evil heart of unbelief should cause them to fall away with hardened heart, but they should exhort one another (3:12f). None should fail to enter promised rest as their hardhearted forefathers had under Moses (4:1f). Having learned of the new covenant with its new mediator, high priest, and benefits, to turn back would be unforgivable, willful apostasy (6:16). They needed mutual encouragement to hold on to their confession because the day of God's judgment against Jerusalem and national Israel was approaching (10:23f). That discipline of God should not become a cause of stumbling for them. By it God was to shake heaven and earth like he did at Sinai to remove the shaken nationalism of Israel and to confirm the spiritual kingdom which cannot be shaken (Ch. 12).

The day approaching was the Lord's day, but not the first day of the week. It was the time of the coming of the Lord in vengeance upon the Jews for their rejection of Jesus. John was transported into that epoch in the Spirit by vision (Rev. 1:10) to see in panorama God's visitation. God has no holy days now.

By this brief review we can see how the disciples would need the confirmation, support, and encouragement of each other. So the writer is urging them to have support gatherings. He is not commanding meetings for routine ceremonial worship. Whether those gatherings were to be formal or informal was of no concern. No format is offered. A specific day of the week, being inconsequential, is not mentioned. Frequency and length of such gatherings is left to their discretion. Whether those gatherings were to include all disciples in an area or only one's closer neighbors and friends is given no hint. We have to inject into the passage our modern concepts in order to say that the writer had regular, organized, systematic, ritualistic assemblies on the first day of each week under consideration. There is no command, example, or inference for such a pattern. Rather than warning against forsaking ritualistic services, he is exhorting the believers not to forsake each other in their times of trial!

Rather than the body being made a mediator, its members were to be intercessors. The assemblies were not to become the route to heaven but way stations along the route.

Let us look at Hebrews 10:2325 again: "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (RSV).

This exhortation is not characterized by specifics of a law. It cannot be fulfilled by adopting our own specifics and then enslaving others to them. Lawful demands may be met without producing love, edification, and encouragement-a point amply demonstrated in our congregations. This is not the inauguration of a scorecard system of righteousness. These associations were not to prove faithfulness but to encourage faithfulness.

God knows that we all need others of like mind and he encourages us not to neglect interactive meetings. But my faithfulness is not altogether dependent upon the support gained in assemblies. Gatherings for mutual edification were much more needed in their day when individuals did not have Bibles, printed materials, mail, telephone, radio, television, tapes, and videos dealing with our needs. They had to depend mostly on persontoperson interaction.

Although I continue to be a part of ritualistic assemblies, the encouragement that I get from them is often minimal, for they tend to begin at 10:00 o'clock sharp and end at 11:00 o'clock dull! I gain more uplift from the "helloship" with others than from the routine. But the encouraging letters and calls that I receive from across the country and other countries sustain me more than the formal assemblies. The purpose is accomplished; the means by which it is satisfied is of less importance.

Do you think that I am overplaying our misdirection, or that we have outgrown it? A few weeks ago I read this in a church bulletin: "Sister Hayes was a faithful Christian here for many years until ill health prevented her from attending services." How horrible! Yes, we all need association with other disciples; however, to miss does not mean to forsake! And in the case of this poor woman, any forsaking would be on the part of her fellow disciples who abandoned her when she needed their encouragement, the very attention which our text was intended to foster.

It is proper to review the New Testament writings and see how little attention is given to assemblies other than to correct abuses in them. There is no command for us to assemble. But in our penchant for law, we have tried to make this persuasive exhortation of our text into a law. We tend to revise the meanings of passages to accommodate centuries of tradition. The scriptures emphasize our personal relationship to God in Christ with his Spirit ruling in our hearts and working through us.

There is only one mention of the church meeting on the first day of the week, and there is no indication that it was a regular practice before or after Paul's visit there (Acts 20:7). They met to break bread-an idiom meaning to eat a meal. Evidently, the fellowship meal was a common setting for their mutual edification in early times. There is no proof that this breaking of bread was participation in the Lord's Supper. And besides, it was Monday morning when they broke it. We have built too big a case on an uncertain premise. Any conclusion based upon an unproved premise is invalid.

By this essay I am not denying the value in regular assemblies. I am exhorting us to give proper purpose, direction, and emphasis to them and to recognize the limited, legalistic concept that we developed about them. There is nothing that is done in formal assemblies, however, that cannot be done with others at home or where two or three are assembled in his name.

Accepting that our text with its context sets forth a principle to guide us today, we recognize our need to be involved for the common good. We will enjoy being with those of like faith and hope. We will thrive on mutual encouragement. We will leave those supportive sessions invigorated in faith and more fervent in love for each other. Those periods of nonjudgmental interaction will promote an awareness of equality and the common nature of all disciples. No one will have to beg us to return. It will not be a matter of assembling in order to exhort us to assemble the next time to fulfill a duty. What a sad thing when this happens!

But where do we find such a setting? Improvement is being seen in some congregations, but most of our assemblies are still structured, formalized, and ritualized into a spectator experience where the individual's painful need at the time may not be addressed even remotely. I am convinced that if we will revise our whole design for assemblies so as to meet the individual needs, we will not have to intimidate disciples in order to assure their return. This would call for meetings for groups with special needs at various times in the week or month instead of our customary "whole church come together" at one time concept and practice. It might even prove the professional pulpiteer to be both unnecessary, anachronistic, and burdensome.

Before you consign me irrevocably to the nether regions for trifling with our traditional prooftext and practices, please look at it and them with a renewed awareness and honesty. And you may profit by pondering this observation of Jeroslav Pelikan: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."