I have become increasingly concerned over the past month that churches, due to a misunderstanding of what full obedience looks like in a situation such as we are in today, have continued to physically meet. I am also extremely concerned that many churches are thinking of returning to their physical meetings because they think they are being disobedient by not doing so. This course of action has, and will, bring harm and even end the lives of many of our brothers and sisters. Now, of course, if this is what obedience looks like even in this situation, so be it. The problem is that I don't see much of a counterargument to this thinking that would indicate that this, in fact, is not being the most obedient in this time, and in fact, I will argue that it is not being obedient at all during this time. It is my hope that wherever this article goes it will save some of the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ from needlessly bringing harm to one another in the name of obedience.
In order to assess the current situation, we need to
ask the right questions and be a people that are “on the text.” Hence, we must
ask a very pointed question of the text, “Why does the church assemble in the
first place?” The Scriptural answer seems to be, “So that believers can obey
the commands/fulfill their ministry to fellow believers.”
This leads to another question, What is their
ministry?
There are three duties given to Christians whereby
they must assemble in order to fulfill their ministry to one another. In Acts
2:42–47, we see these three duties of their ministry.
They were
devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to prayer. Reverential awe came over everyone, and many
wonders and miraculous signs came about by the apostles. All who believed were
together and held everything in common, and they began selling their property
and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone, as anyone had need.
Every day they continued to gather together by common consent in the temple
courts, breaking bread from house to house, sharing their food with glad and
humble hearts, praising God and having the good will of all the people. And the
Lord was adding to their number every day those who were being saved.
There are three ministries of which
believers partake when they meet together, and therefore, must meet in order to
do them in the early church.
1. Devotion
to the apostolic teaching
2. Fellowshiping
with one another
3. The
complete meeting of the physical needs of one another
These three ministries are expanded in places like Ephesians
4:11–16, 25, and 28; 1 Corinthians 11:33; Romans 12:4–8, 13, 15; and Hebrews
10:24–25; and 13:16–17.
And he himself
gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as
pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to
build up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and
of the knowledge of the Son of God—a mature person, attaining to the measure of
Christ’s full stature. So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and
forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of
people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes. But speaking the truth
in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head. From him
the whole body grows, fitted and held together through every supporting
ligament. As each one does its part, the body builds itself up in love . . .
Therefore, having laid aside falsehood, each one of you speak the truth
with his neighbor, because we are members of one another . . . The one
who steals must steal no longer; instead he must labor, doing good with his own
hands, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need.
So then, my
brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
For just as in one body we have many members, and not all the members
serve the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ, and
individually we are members who belong to one another. And we have different
gifts according to the grace given to us. If the gift is prophecy, that
individual must use it in proportion to his faith. If it is service, he must
serve; if it is teaching, he must teach; if it is exhortation, he must exhort;
if it is contributing, he must do so with sincerity; if it is leadership, he
must do so with diligence; if it is showing mercy, he must do so with
cheerfulness . . . Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality .
. . Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
And let us take
thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works, not abandoning
our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each
other, and even more so because you see the day drawing near.
And do not
neglect to do good and to share what you have, for God is pleased with such
sacrifices. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your
souls and will give an account for their work.
These three elements are expanded in
these texts to include the following:
1.
A commitment to devote
oneself to the teachers God has provided for the church, primarily submitting
oneself to the teaching and authority of the elders.
2.
A commitment to fellowship
means the reception of the teaching of the church leadership in such a way so
as to be able to minister to one another in “speaking the truth to one another
in love,” prayer, counsel, singing, rebuke, encouragement, etc. This also includes
the partaking in communion with one another.
3.
Looking for those in need
among the assembly and completely taking care of those needs by working and
selling possessions.
These elements above make up the reasons
why Christians must assemble in the early church.
Although one can get apostolic teaching
through a letter in the ancient church, as the churches as a whole do,
individuals were not going to each receive their own letters as they would have
them in the Bible today. I would also argue that it is through the spoken word,
reading the letters out loud and an exposition of Scripture, by those who are
able to teach and designated as elders under which the laity are to be in
submission that the means by which Christ matures His church is accomplished.
In the times before us, therefore, one had to usually physically go to the
assembly in order to receive this teaching.
One cannot fellowship in the early church, again, apart from
letter writing or oral messengers, without physically assembling together. The
communion that is to take place “when you come together” can only happen when
the church physically comes together in the first century. There is no other
means to be together and take it together. There is no other means to discover
one another’s spiritual needs of prayer, encouragement, rebuke, counsel, etc.
beside meeting physically together or sending countless letters and oral
messengers to one another, which would have been incredibly expensive and
impractical in the first century.
Finally, one cannot meet the physical needs of one another
without actually going physically and giving these things to those in need; nor
is it practical, again, to do this all through letter, although the letter
becomes a means of this occasionally.
In order to be obedient to the Christian life and ministry,
therefore, for most of the life of the church for the past 2,000 years, all
believers had to be physically present in order to fulfill their ministry to
one another as the Body of Christ.
The question is whether the duty of this ministry and its
commands carry as a part of them the element that one must be physically
present in order to fulfill them. If they do, then none of them can be obeyed
without being physically in the same room. If they do not, then it might be
possible to obey them without being physically in the same room. Everything
hinges on this question then.
This may seem like a rigid all-or-nothing comment, but it is
simply a matter of logic. If Command X necessarily contains Element A, then
without Element A, one is not obeying Command X. If the command to speak the
truth to one another in love, for instance, contains with it the idea that one
must be physically present in the same room with one another, then one cannot
fulfill it in any other way without being disobedient. If I am commanded by God
to give to someone $40, I am not partially obeying by only giving him $20. If I
do not give to him $40, as I was commanded, I have disobeyed. There is no such
thing as partial obedience, therefore, since partial obedience is partial
disobedience and therefore completely disobedient. Saul kills some of the
Amalekites but he did not kill all of them. That was not seen by God as partial
obedience but complete disobedience. Hence, if any one of the commands we are
to obey as a church carries with it that we must physically be present in the
same room with one another in order to carry it out, and we are not physically
present in the same room, we are not partially obeying but completely
disobeying the Word of God.
There is absolutely nothing in these commands that indicate
they can only be carried out physically in person. In fact, numerous elements
in the New Testament and early church indicate that they were not even carried
out physically all the time in the first century. For instance, the apostolic
teaching, as mentioned before, was carried out sometimes by the apostles
delivering a letter to the congregation.
Likewise, needs of the churches were
often handled, not in person, but through the making known and collection of
funds in letter and then delivered through a messenger. Communion was often
brought to the sick who could not come to the assembly, so that physical
presence was obviously not a requirement for those who could not make it there.
Likewise, prayer requests, counsel, rebuke, speaking the truth in love, etc.
was also accomplished sometimes through letters. What this tells us therefore
is that when there is another means of participating in the three elements of
ministry that do not require physical presence, it is used and seen as
perfectly acceptable as a part of the ministry that is commanded of Christians
to practice. What that tells us definitively is that physical presence, in
fact, is not a part of these
commands, and that they therefore can be fulfilled apart from physically being
present with one another in the same room.
One cannot argue that since they physically met in order to fulfill these commands, we must do the same, since they have no other way of meeting. Physical meetings is their only option to fulfill the duties given to them, but this cannot serve as the argument to exclude any other type of meeting through an online source in our modern-day. The only media they used in the early church was written. We couldn't then make the argument that using video today is wrong because the early church didn't use it. They didn't use it because it didn't exist. It wasn't an option for them. Nor did the ability to gather together through social media/meeting apps. So I could not understand their physical meetings as some sort of exclusion of any other kind of meeting and fellowship because there wasn't any other kind.
Hence, the question becomes in a day when all of the above
can be met by using other means of assembly besides being physically present in
the same room with one another, Is the church being fully obedient by meeting
online through programs like Jitsi or Zoom, through phone calls, texts,
Youtube, etc., take care of needs through delivery instead of through meeting, but
not assembling physically in the same room?
It must be that these can all be met through these new means
as well as the old so that it must be determined, based upon circumstance,
whether physical presence is more beneficial and desirable than non-physical
presence in ministry.
Normally, physical presence is more desirable for multiple
reasons, practically and in terms of providing a basic human need of being
physically in the presence of other humans. Christians desire to fulfill this need
with one another, as they should. They, therefore, long to be present with one
another in the same way that they long to be present with Christ physically in
the new world to come. Some of this can be summed up in the idea of the holy
kiss, i.e., the need to express affection toward one another by being in one
another’s presence.
However, when my physical presence is a major threat to the
life of other Christians then physical presence has become non-beneficial and
therefore not desirable due to the detriment rather than benefit of health my
physical presence creates.
What this means is that in a time such as this, the most
obedient and the greatest fulfillment of the ministry of love toward God and
one another can only be to seek out to fulfill our ministries to one another
through alternate means until that threat is no longer a clear detriment to the
well-being of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
What this means is that it would be unloving, and therefore,
not be fulfilling our ministries to one another in terms of the physical need
by continuing to physically meet during a time when physically meeting puts
other Christians’ lives at great risk.
It needs also to be said that merely watching Youtube videos
without submitting oneself to elders does not even fulfill the first aspect of
ministry, which is to devote oneself to the apostolic teaching/ministry, much
less fulfill the aspects of ministry such as meeting the spiritual and physical
needs of one another (i.e., fellowship and charity). There is a right and wrong
way to do this just as there is a right and wrong way to physically meet.
Merely making the argument that one can
do this obediently is not the same thing as actually doing it and being obedient.
It should also be said that our Sunday services and actual
physical gatherings never were what they should be, as they are shadows that
represent the kingdom to come in the new heavens and earth. They pale in
comparison to our teaching, fellowship, and love that will take place in a
world without sin or idolatrous distraction.
They also pale in comparison to what assembling used to be in
the early church. We see them gathering every day, not just some days, and when
this proved to be impractical, the meeting was moved to mainly a single day, Sunday.
Yet, even our modern Sunday two to three hour services are nothing compared to
the all night and day services of the early church. Celebrate Easter at a
Protestant church today and then go celebrate it at an Eastern Orthodox church.
One is an hour or two long and the other is a week long. This doesn’t mean that
our church services are not as obedient as they used to be and that we should
now return to really long drawn out services. Tradition isn’t a guide here. The
Scripture is. I have attended an EO Easter service and my assessment is that
the above reasons for which the church is to assemble doesn’t really happen in
that week long service. So what is important to use as a guide is not the
traditional time and place in which we’ve always gathered, but the normative
reasons for which we have gathered as it is laid out in Scripture.
A Reformation21 article argues against this, assuming that
physicality is a part of the command to gather, by arguing that churches in the
time of this virus should still physically meet and just take the following
precautions:
- Crowd density can be reduced by multiplying
services. If a church normally has one morning service, it can conduct
two, thereby cutting the crowd size in half.
- Social distancing can be achieved by roping off
every other pew, urging families to sit in clusters, and requiring six or
more feet between non-family members. Worshippers can be dismissed one row
at a time, all the while urging six feet of social distance.
- Proper hygiene can be achieved by eliminating
handshakes and hugs, by eliminating use of pew Bibles and hymnals, and
putting all necessary information in disposable bulletins. Collection
plates can be placed at the doors rather than being passed. Pews and
chairs can be wiped down after each service, and if multiple services are
being conducted, the ropes can be moved from the unused to the used
pews/chairs.
- High-risk persons can be discouraged from
attending. Nurseries may be closed and children 4 and under kept at home
to worship with their parents through the livestream.
- Sunday school and other non-essential
services of the church may be cancelled.
Doesn't this all assume some necessary physicality that would even negate the actual duty of the ministry that would make physically meeting more disobedient than meeting through apps and social media?
Notice that there is the suggestion to distance from people,
cancel other studies beside the one in the big room, sit apart from one
another, have no physical contact with one another, tell the elderly and sick
to stay at home and not attend, and split the church up so that groups are
created.
I have to ask in light of these suggestions whether the
author of this article even knows what the church is for and why it assembles.
Are people yelling at each other from across the room to speak the truth in
love and counsel one another or is it ok to use a phone as long as you’re in
the same room?
This all seems to assume that the church assembles physically
just to be in the same room. Just to occupy a space with a short distance
between one another instead of a long distance between one another. Yet, the sacred space is the people and the
assembly of the people creates the size of the sacred space they occupy between
them in their devotion to the apostolic word, fellowship, and love expressed in
giving to one another. Doesn’t that mean that the church as it meets now
occupies and creates a larger sacred space than it does in a building? Doesn’t
it also indicate that a church that is fellowshipping without having to shout
across the room, which would limit fellowship real quick, especially if
everyone was doing it (which might be a violation of 1 Corinthians 14 as chaos
in incoherent speech would fill the church), is actually the more faithful
church that can fulfill actual fellowship? Doesn’t it mean that a church that
can have all of the studies it desires, fellowship in a much more effective
way, etc. is a more faithful church rather than a church in compromise? Isn’t a
church that can all meet as one better than a church that must divide itself
into smaller groups? Isn't a church that can do communion through an online meeting app with elders overseeing it and praying over the communion better than throwing bread at people and delivering wine in a hazmat suit, or worse, spreading a deadly disease through physically distributing it?
These suggestions are not better but worse than what
churches are doing now. Instead, if we ask clear questions and think through
why the church meets we don’t have to resort to what I would consider a far
greater compromise than what we are doing now. In fact, I would argue that the
above suggestions are disobedient to the reasons why the church actually meets,
and this is the true danger of going off of feelings obtained through
traditions rather than asking clear questions of the Word of God as to why we
meet in the first place.
Again, there needs to be a clear distinction here between what complete obedience and love for Christ looks like right now in this particular situation and what obedience in the context of the ideal and church's desires to be with Christ look like outside of this situation.
It must be said again, this is just what meeting looks like when physically meeting poses a physical threat, and is, therefore, a detriment rather than a blessing/benefit to other Christians. We long for Christ's physical presence and so long to be in one another's physical presence, but our desires and what is obedient and good at this time are two different things. What I desire and what is most loving and obedient can look very different. Paul desired to be physically with the Christians to whom he wrote, but his obedience meant his physical absence and confinement to a jail or out somewhere else preaching the gospel, and only being with them in spirit through the letters he wrote.
So we need to ask what it is Christ wants us to accomplish by our meetings, and that is what I have tried to focus on here. It's clear that the early church looked for alternatives in times of physical threats because they moved from houses to catacombs.
However, we who are redeemed and have been given the love of Christ and for Christ obviously want as full of a fellowship as we can have in the here and now. All of our fellowship is a longing for Christ's physical presence in the new world, however, and so even our normal meetings are less than ideal and not a fulfillment of our ultimate desires until then. This is why I have dealt here with the issue of obedience and not what is ideal during this time.
What that also means is that after this threat has gone, I would rebuke not only someone or some church that kept meeting in this alternative way, but even question their salvation, as this longing to be in the physical presence Christ through His people is present in every true believer. Anyone who chooses to keep meeting only in this way after the threat is gone is clearly in a state of disobedience and sin, as it evidences a lack of love and desire for Christ. Hence, the church should in no way choose to keep meeting this way in exclusion of the physical meeting together that would bring about a partial fulfillment of our longing and a physical and emotional benefit to other believers.
What this also means is that the church needs to be very diligent in being the church by all meeting together at the appointed times on these apps, all watching the sermons and Bible studies given in order to receive the teaching of the apostles through their pastors, all need to keep themselves accountable to their elders by keeping in contact with them, all need to fellowship with one another by texting, calling, etc. to share prayers, truths, counsel, rebuke, encouragement, and any physical needs that are yet unmet. All need to continue to meet those needs. As we do so, let us pray that God will bring this plague to a quick end, but even more so a good end, where the church throughout the world has learned, perhaps, how to be the church even better than it would have had it simply continued to physically meet without realizing the reasons why we are doing so.
