Is Churchgoing Dispensable?

Occasionally I have heard people say something like “I don’t need to go to church. I can have a relationship with God by myself.” The response evangelicals give to such a statement often relies on one primary Scripture: Hebrews 10:25. In this verse, the writer to the Hebrews urges the people not to “give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing,” but to “encourage one another, and all the more as [they] see the day approaching” (NIV). This is an excellent response to the argument “self-churchers” give.

Nonetheless, it has bothered me that I could only offer this verse in reply to those who would “forsake meeting together.” That someone would think it fine to be divorced from church life seemed altogether foreign to the position of Scripture, but I could not think of appropriate ways to point out to such people the weight of the whole counsel of God on this issue. The time and energy it takes to assemble with a body of believers on a Sunday morning that would be ideal for sleeping in is, after all, significant. A cursory look at preferred Sunday morning activities in our increasingly post-Christian culture would confirm this.

I believe the Lord just yesterday gave me insight on the necessity of church life through the sermon of Jamie Rasmussen. Mr. Rasmussen covered 1 Thessalonians 5:12–18 that morning. When he expounded verse 14 in particular, I noticed how it was impossible to fulfill the Apostle Paul’s commands in isolation. Verse 14 reads: “And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” Mr. Rasmussen argued that the last element in this series, patience with everyone, contrasted with the prior three elements. In his opinion, the first three commands dealt with relationships among believers, and the last dealt with relationships toward unbelievers.

Whether or not Mr. Rasmussen was correct in his analysis of this passage, it occurred to me that at least three commands in this verse could not be honored by those who forsake church. How would it be possible for the isolated Christian to warn those who are idle? A Christian would not even know who “those who are idle” referred to. Similarly, such a Christian would not be able to identify those who were timid or weak so that he or she might help them.

There is additional evidence that the biblical writers assumed their addresses were churchgoers. It would make no sense to write letters to the Romans, the Philippians, the Thessalonians, etc., if they did not comprise an active fellowship that could hear the reading of the letter. Even the authors’ frequent use of the reciprocal pronoun allēlous (one another) shows that those who wrote the Bible had an interactive group of believers in mind. Furthermore, Luke’s commendation of the early church (Acts 2:42–47) evinces his conviction that Christians were a group of mutually-supportive people.

Maybe the reason I had such trouble in finding explicit references to the habit of churchgoing is evidence that the biblical authors simply assumed it. Perhaps such “secrets” are right under our noses like Poe’s purloined letter. I’m glad we have the whole counsel of God to inform us, because without it we might miss instruction that would be hard to see through a microscope but easy to see through a telescope. If we step back after scrutinizing individual verses, we glean more truths that we can’t afford to miss.