How to Listen in Church
How do you feel on a typical Sunday morning? In Part 2 of How to Listen in Church, we’ll talk about how to make assembling in worship more than a routine activity.
Hebrews 10:24-25 is interesting. The author of Hebrews tells the believers that when they come together, they need to do two things. They’re to encourage one another, and to stimulate one another. The word consider means to understand, to observe, to study something. Consider how to provoke and stimulate one another. How do we get out of complacency to love and good deeds?
The word assembling here is a root comparative word to synagogue. The synagogues were the assembly of the Jews, segregated men and women. You are called out of paganism, and into the family of God. When Paul went to the missionary cities, he went first to the synagogue. That’s where the pious jews would gather, and that’s where he preached the gospel. We don’t know the backstory. We can make some educated guesses, but the application is evident.
It is vital that we encourage one another, not to abandon the assembly. It’s important that we gather as a body of Christ, God views what we’re doing right now as important. He’s not interested in your church attendance. He’s interested in you assembling together.
John Calvin in the 16th century wrote these words about this passage. “There is so much peevishness in almost everyone that individuals, if they could, would gladly make their own churches for themselves. This warning is therefore more than needed by all of us, that we should be encouraged to love rather than hate, that we should not separate ourselves from those who are joined to us by a common faith.”
The Apostles’ teaching is basically your New Testament. Some people came from a tradition where they heard the term, ‘the apostolic teaching of the cross.’ That’s the New Testament: Matthew, Mark Luke, John, Acts, Romans, etc. All the books we have in our New Testament are written by the apostles who are explaining the Old Testament as a result of the birth of the church.
Secondly, fellowship is a communal idea. When you come out of the church, out of the culture, Judaism or a Gentile world, you are no longer affiliated with those groups in antiquity. You weren’t welcomed, so the church became your family. Breaking bread is not just the Lord’s table in action. It’s a commemoration of all of the person and work of Christ. And we break bread together to remind us of our salvation, the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and that we’re one in the body.
John Stott writes, “God has spoken scripture affirms that God has spoken through both historical deeds and explanatory words. How dare we speak if God has not spoken by ourselves? We have nothing to say. Scripture is God’s word in written form. The written word as well as what becomes the apostolic teaching of the cross will be God speaking through his. So God has spoken and he is speaking in his word.”
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How do you feel on a typical Sunday morning? In Part 2 of How to Listen in Church, we’ll talk about how to make assembling in worship more than a routine activity.