Question:
Is there a difference between Sunday school and other meetings?

Answer:
Yes, there is a difference between the Sunday school and other meetings. First Corinthians 14:34 tells us that women are to keep silent “in the churches” or ASSEMBLY MEETINGS. This whole chapter is speaking about when “the whole church be come together into one place (verse 23).

The whole epistle of First Timothy was written so that we may know how to act when are gathered as an assembly of believers to represent the “one body” of Christ, which is composed of every believer. As the apostle Paul says: “I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:14, 15).
The Lord tells us in Matthew 18:20 what constitutes an assembly meeting. “Where two or three are gathered in [or, unto] My name, there am I in the midst of them.” Christ is the Center and Object of the gathering of His people who “are gathered” by the Spirit of God through the Word. “Unto,” means in honor of. “My name” means all that the Lord’s name stands for. When we are gathered as we are instructed by the Word, we have an assembly. All that is needed are two, and if there are two who are gathered by the Spirit by the Word unto Christ, there will be three, for the Lord promises that He is there.
We are instructed to have different ASSEMBLY MEETINGS when gathered as His assembly. So we try to gather according to what the Lord tells us in His Word, or, “upon His Word,” or according to or ON the principles of the Word, as the picture on the next page illustrates.

1. First Corinthians 11:20-34 tells us about “when ye [the assembly] come together…to eat the Lord’s Supper.” This is an assembly meeting to remember the Lord in His death. Remembering the Lord causes us to give Him worship and praise for Who He is and for what He has done on the cross. This is a most important meeting of the assembly.

2. In Matthew 18:19 we are instructed to have an assembly prayer meeting, because it is linked with the next verse where the Lord speaks of the assembly.

3. In Matthew 18:17, 18 we have instruction for an assembly meeting for discipline. First Corinthians 5:4, 5 also speaks of the assembly meeting for discipline. Reception to fellowship is part of this. (The whole assembly is to judge those who are “within,” and this would include those who want to come in, and be part of the assembly testimony for Christ as well—v. 12.)

4. First Corinthians 14:23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31 instructs us to have an assembly meeting for the Lord to give ministry from the Word for the time for the needs of the people. “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge” (v. 29). We sometimes call this an open meeting, because the Lord may use any of the brothers to bring the Word from the Lord for the time. “For ye may all prophesy,” but only two or three (v. 29) at this meeting.

In the assembly meetings the Spirit of God leads whomsoever He will to give out a hymn, pray, or speak (1 Corinthians 14:15). These meetings do not depend on special gifts, for the Spirit of God empowers all the Lord’s people to worship, pray, discern His mind, and speak for Him. But gifts are needed for those meetings that we are not instructed in the Word to have as an assembly. The other meetings may be “activities of the assembly,” like the Sunday school and Bible study where the teacher’s gift is so helpful, and the Gospel Meeting where the Lord uses the gift of the evangelist to refresh the saints and bring salvation to precious souls.