Characteristics of the Early
Church:Assembly Meetings
There is a tendency among
Christians today—even among those who are truly born again—to be content with
being a part of the "electronic church." They watch or listen to a
certain quota of Christian programs each week—many with profitable ministry no
doubt—and feel they have fulfilled their obligation to Christ and His Church.
As noted in Part I of this series,
the Greek word, ekklesia, for Church expresses the thought of an
assembling of people. The chief activity of the local ekklesia or church
is being assembled together for worship, prayer, ministry of the Word of God,
or decision-making. The Lord Jesus, in anticipating the formation of His body,
the Church, expressed it this way:"Where two or three are gathered
together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20).
In the first weeks and months of
the Church, the believers in their first love came together daily to
hear the teaching of the apostles, and for fellowship, breaking of bread, and
prayer (Acts 2:42-47). About 25 years later, the disciples seem to have had the
practice of gathering on the first day of the week (that is the Lord’s day or
Sunday) to break bread. When the apostle Paul came to Troas, he stayed seven
days. "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came
together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the
morrow" (Acts 20:6,7). It appears that the apostle stayed in Troas for seven days for the express purpose of being with the assembly when they
"came together to break bread." They openly expressed their
membership in the Church—the body of Christ—by being gathered together around
their risen Head.
The expression "gathered
together" in Matthew 18:20 is sunegmenoi—which refers not so much
to a voluntary action by the believers but a being drawn together by the power
of the Holy Spirit and attracted to Christ in their midst. The greatest joy of
heaven will come from being gathered around our Saviour, with "the Lamb as
it had been slain" "in the midst" (Rev. 5:6). It is God’s desire
that we should begin to experience this joy on earth by being gathered around
the Lord Jesus as members of His body.
What makes these meetings so
special is that there is no human leader in them. The same Spirit who gathers
the members of the body together is also the Leader who focuses all on
Christ the Head in the midst (John 16:14). There are at least four kinds of
these meetings:
1. The Lord’s Supper or
remembrance meeting. The words "came together" in Acts 20:7 are
from the Greek word sunegmenoi. Thus we have a link with "gathered
together" in Matt. 18:20. The purpose of this meeting is to meditate upon
the body or person of the Lord Jesus in all His holiness and perfection (Psa.
40:6-10; Luke 1:35; 2:51,52; 3:22; Acts 3:14; 2 Cor. 5:21; Rev. 4:8; etc.) and
in all His suffering for our sakes on the cross (Psa. 22:1-21; 69:1-21; Isa.
52:13-53:12; Matt. 26:36-27:50; etc.); and upon the tremendous value of His
precious, atoning blood (Rom. 3:25; 5:9; Eph. 1:7; 2:13; Col. 1:20; Heb. 10:19;
1 Pet. 1:19; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5; 5:9; etc.). In this way we
"remember" Him and "show the Lord’s death till He come" (1
Cor. 11:24-26). What a precious privilege is afforded us in being gathered
together with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in our midst—both the Object and
the Leader (Psa. 22:22; Heb. 2:12) of our praise and worship. It is truly a
foretaste of heaven on earth.
2. The assembly prayer meeting.
In the immediate context of Matt. 18:20 we read, "If two of you shall
agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for
them of My Father who is in heaven" (verse 19). Here we have the
foreshadowing of an assembly prayer meeting with the smallest possible number
of participants—two.
In Acts 4, with the Church now in
existence, we read of a real assembly prayer meeting. The apostles Peter and
John, upon being released from prison, "went to their own company"
(verse 23). After the assembly heard Peter and John’s report, "they lifted
up their voice to God with one accord" (verse 24). (Note the similarity
with Matt. 18:19.) Observe what they prayed for:not for protection from trials
and persecution; not for judgment to come upon the persecutors; but for
boldness to speak God’s Word in the midst of a hostile world (verse 29). How
quickly and powerfully was that united, assembly prayer answered:"When
they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled [or gathered]
together [sunegmenoi]; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
and they spoke the Word of God with boldness" (verse 31).
Another wonderful example of an
assembly prayer meeting is found in Acts 12. We know the story well of how
Peter, upon being released from prison, went to the very place where the
assembly was gathered in prayer for him (verses 5,12).
Surely there is great power in
assembly prayer! It is sad to see how little value is placed on the assembly
prayer meeting in so many local churches and assemblies today. Sometimes just a
small fraction of the assembly is present at such meetings. Where are you—my
reader friend—to be found at the time of the weekly prayer meeting? Do you
realize that Christ is there in the midst just as in the remembrance meeting?
The One in whose name we pray (John 14:13,14; 15:16; 16:23), who prays for us
(John 17:9) and makes intercession for us (Heb. 7:25), and the all-powerful,
all-wise "I AM" who can meet all of our needs, is in our very midst
when we are thus gathered. An assembly can surely expect immense blessing and
experience the power of God when all the saints of the assembly are regularly
gathered together around the Lord in prayer.
3. The meeting for assembly
discipline. While the immediate context of Matt. 18:20 is a prayer meeting,
the broader context is a meeting for discipline:"If your brother shall
trespass against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone….
Take with you one or two more…. Tell it unto the church…. Whatsoever you
shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven" (verses 15-18). The apostle Paul gives
instruction concerning an assembly meeting for discipline:"In the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together [sunegmenoi], and
my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto
Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day
of the Lord Jesus" (1 Cor. 5:4,5). Putting people out and receiving people
into fellowship is not the work of a clergyman, not the work of a body of
elders or deacons, but the work of the assembly as a whole, as "gathered
together" "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." The great
value and power of assembly discipline and other assembly decisions derives
from being gathered around the Lord who guides their decisions and
ratifies them in heaven (Matt. 18:18).
4. The open ministry meeting.
"Being assembled together with them, [Jesus] commanded them that they
should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father."
Jesus went on to tell His disciples, "You shall receive power, after that
the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and you shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth" (Acts 1:4-8). The literal sense of verse 4 is that Jesus had the
disciples gathered together about Himself. In this way, in their midst, He
encouraged and instructed His disciples. This might be considered to be a
precursor to an open ministry meeting where the assembly is gathered together
around the Lord Jesus to receive ministry from Himself through the mouths of
His prophet-servants.
The apostle Paul, in describing
the ministry particularly prominent in the open ministry meeting, wrote,
"He who prophesies speaks unto men to edification, and exhortation, and
comfort" (1 Cor. 14:3). When an assembly is gathered together unto the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ for receiving ministry, there is the promise that
the Lord Himself will be there in the midst, speaking through mouths of
willing, devoted brothers, words of "edification, and exhortation, and
comfort."
Instruction concerning the open
ministry meeting is found in 1 Corinthians 14. "When you come together,
every one of you has a psalm, has a doctrine, has a tongue, has a revelation,
has an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying" (verse 26).
This verse, when read in the context, serves two opposite purposes. First, on
the positive side, it describes the character of the open ministry meeting,
with many believers taking part in different ways. Second, on the negative
side, it suggests that there was disorder in Corinth with this meeting as there
was with the Lord’s Supper. The words, "every one of you," along with
the corrective instructions that follow, show that everybody was trying
to get into the act at such a meeting, and it was resulting in confusion. For
this reason, the apostle Paul was led by the Holy Spirit to write down several
rules, such as limiting the number of speakers, to help bring order to these
meetings (verses 27-35).
5. Other kinds of meetings.
Other meetings of the believers are mentioned in the New Testament. For example,
we read of the apostles preaching and teaching the Word of God to the believers
(Acts 2:42; 20:7) as well as preaching the gospel to a mixed company of
believers and unbelievers (Acts 2:14-26). These have a somewhat different
character from the meetings mentioned above in which the believers were
gathered around Christ, totally depending upon the Holy Spirit to lead one or
another brother in praying, worshiping, reading or ministering the Scriptures,
or giving out a hymn.
Frequency of gatherings for the
Lord’s Supper. As mentioned above, the believers initially had the
"breaking of bread" daily (Acts 2:42) and later weekly (Acts 20:7; 1
Cor. 16:2).
The children of Israel in the Old Testament were to offer a lamb every morning and a lamb every evening as
a continual burnt offering (Exod. 29:38-42). On the Sabbath (the seventh day),
this number was to be doubled. The sacrificed lambs prefigured the sacrificial
death of Christ on the cross for our sins. That which was a picture of the
atoning death of Christ was to be continually kept before the minds of the
Israelites. So it is not surprising that God would want believers in Christ to
have the remembrance of His death frequently before them. "For as often
as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show the Lord’s death till He
come" (1 Cor. 11:26).
No specific command has been given
as to how often is "often." However, this is the only kind of
gathering the Lord has specifically requested of the believers, so it surely
should be given the highest priority in the local assembly, above teaching,
preaching, Bible study, and even prayer.
We sometimes hear objections to
weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper:"If we do it too frequently, it
will become stale, commonplace, boring." But isn’t it curious that we
seldom hear that objection to eating meals? And the people who spend about 600
hours each year listening to or watching baseball games or watching TV soap
operas, apparently do not find them stale, trite, and boring. On the other
hand, how could we possibly be bored when the Lord Jesus Christ is in our
midst! Is heaven going to become stale, commonplace, and boring after a few
weeks or months or years or millennia? Impossible!!!
Here are some suggested reasons
why the Holy Spirit has told us to remember the Lord often (1 Cor.
11:26):
1. God the Father and Christ our
Saviour surely are worthy of the continual, repeated, collective praise and
worship of saints who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. This
will be the eternal theme of the saints in heaven (Rev. 5:8-14). Why should it
not occupy a large place in the believers’ lives here on earth?
2. Each time we do this we enter,
by faith, into the holiest where Christ has preceded us (Heb. 9:11,12,24;
10:19-22). As we do so we are reminded of the need to examine ourselves and
judge the sin in our lives (1 Cor. 11:28-30), to be living holy lives day by
day throughout the week (1 Cor. 5:8), and to be keeping short accounts with God
and with our brothers and sisters in Christ (Matt. 5:23,24).
3. As we physically feed upon the
bread and wine, we spiritually feed upon Christ, being nourished by the Holy
Spirit with fresh thoughts of the perfections, glories, sufferings, and love of
Christ, all of which provide fresh motivation for loving Him in return and for
living godly, obedient, dependent lives throughout the coming week.
Summary and conclusion.
1. God wants all believers in
Christ to be gathered with other believers in the local church or assembly, and
not just stay at home listening to "electronic" preachers and Bible
teachers. "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together" (Heb.
10:25).
2. God has designed special
meetings of the assembly in which the gathered believers, in full dependence
upon the leading of the Holy Spirit, enjoy the presence of the Lord Jesus in
their midst (Matt. 18:20).
3. In future installments of this
series, we shall speak more of how such meetings may be conducted as well as of
other ways each individual member of the body of Christ may contribute to the
welfare of the whole.
FRAGMENT "Not forsaking the
assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is" (Heb. 10:25).
If Christ fills
the soul, the effect of it will be to draw us together. We read in Acts 2:1
that "they were all with one accord in one place." What was the
reason? Christ touched the chord in their hearts, and it rang responsive in
every heart that loved the Lord Jesus. We are not drawn together because we
have similarity of taste in natural things, or have the same education, or the
same nationality, or anything of that sort. Rather it is Christ, and Christ
alone, who draws the saints of God and holds them together. Thus we see how
fitting is the exhortation not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.
Why is there
any need of such an exhortation, "As the manner of some is"? There is
a tendency even in the hearts of those who know Christ, if they grow cold, to
separate and remain apart. This we see in Thomas who was not with the disciples
when the risen Christ first appeared to them. If worldliness comes in, or if
anything obscures Christ from our vision, there is a tendency to turn away from
the fellowship of saints. Thus we need that exhortation. Let us take it as an
index of our state of soul that if we do not love to meet with the people of
God, if we do not love to come together for prayer, for exhortation, and, above
all, for remembering our blessed Lord, it shows He has not the supreme place in
our souls; let us judge the root of it and come back at once.
(From Lectures
on Hebrews by Samuel Ridout.)