Episode 32
Do I Have to Go to Church? | NT90
Do you ever wonder if the Bible really commands you to go to church every Sunday? In this episode of Seek Go Create, Tim Winders digs deep into the New Testament, challenging traditional assumptions and exploring the true meaning behind verses often used to enforce church attendance. Is it about checking a box, or is there something much deeper at play? Join us as we reexamine what it means to gather with other believers—and discover why understanding the context could transform your faith journey.
"Guilt is one of the most effective tools ever used to keep people in seats on Sunday mornings." - Tim Winders
Access all show and episode resources HERE
Episode Resources:
- NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Guilt And Sunday Seats
00:28 Series Setup And Context
01:28 Not Anti Church Disclaimer
02:45 My Church Background
06:32 Faith Outside The Building
13:09 The Day Drawing Near
15:14 Other Go To Verses
16:42 Acts Gatherings Explained
20:02 Ecclesia Not A Building
22:25 Why This Matters
22:56 Obligation Versus Relationship
23:54 God Beyond The Building
26:09 Systems That Enable Abuse
29:52 Hebrews Audience And Pressure
32:09 Gathering As Survival
36:34 The Day Drawing Near
38:03 What Gathering Is For
38:51 How Attendance Became Mandatory
40:24 Healthy Reasons To Gather
45:59 Next Episode Teaser
Transcript
Guilt is one of the most effective tools ever used to keep people
Speaker:in seats on Sunday mornings.
Speaker:I know because it worked on me for years.
Speaker:I went because I thought I had to because the Bible says so.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:There is one verse behind most of it, and it may surprise you what the Bible.
Speaker:Actually says about attending church.
Speaker:Welcome to Seek, go Create.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders.
Speaker:I recently read the entire New Testament in 90 days in the order it
Speaker:was written, not the order that's in your Bible, The order that the letters
Speaker:actually went out, and what I found surprised me, challenged me, and
Speaker:changed the way I understand scripture.
Speaker:This series is sort of a follow up.
Speaker:It's where I share discoveries with you that I had along the way of reading.
Speaker:The Bible, the New Testament.
Speaker:In order and in context.
Speaker:If you want to do what I did and read it for yourself, I encourage
Speaker:you to, the reading plan is free at K two M Foundation slash 1990.
Speaker:You could download the plan, read along and see what you find.
Speaker:The link should be down in the show notes.
Speaker:Click it, check it out, and start reading the New Testament in order in context.
Speaker:If you haven't been doing so all ready, before we go any further in this episode,
Speaker:I think because context is so important with what we've been doing, I want
Speaker:to give a little context about, what this episode is and what it is not.
Speaker:First of all, I do wanna say this is not a, don't go to church.
Speaker:Message.
Speaker:I'm not here to talk you out of gathering with other believers.
Speaker:That's not what I am here to do.
Speaker:And this is not an episode about defining what church is or should look like.
Speaker:That is a bigger conversation.
Speaker:It's actually a cool conversation to have and something that
Speaker:we should have at some point.
Speaker:Maybe we will in this series, but it is not this episode, this episode
Speaker:is one simple topic, answering one simple question, what does the Bible.
Speaker:Actually say about attending church, especially specifically the New Testament.
Speaker:Is it a command?
Speaker:Is it a requirement?
Speaker:Is that what Hebrews 10 25 is really saying?
Speaker:That's all we're doing with this episode.
Speaker:We're gonna really dig deep on what is going on there.
Speaker:Looking at the text, seeing what it says, and seeing what it does not say.
Speaker:Before we get into the scriptures, I, I've got to give you some of my background and
Speaker:maybe some of the things that layer into why I asked this question, and I ask it
Speaker:in a, I, I don't wanna say a hard way, cynical way, maybe I'm just, I just sort
Speaker:of press because at times I could be.
Speaker:Fairly anti tradition, and I try to check myself.
Speaker:I mean, there's some traditions that are good, but of course many of them
Speaker:are just there and we don't know why.
Speaker:I actually grew up in the deep south.
Speaker:I've shared this with before.
Speaker:I grew up in the Atlanta metro area, what many would call the Bible belt.
Speaker:I did go to church.
Speaker:We didn't go.
Speaker:All the time.
Speaker:And it's interesting we're recording this shortly after Easter in 2026 and
Speaker:Easter's one of those times when most people get all cleaned up, dressed
Speaker:up, et cetera, and they go to church.
Speaker:The churches that I went to really, fed off of that, mostly
Speaker:Southern Baptist in the deep South.
Speaker:And honestly, other than seeing people I knew not much about the whole
Speaker:environment was a. Appealing to me.
Speaker:Don't get mad at me.
Speaker:I'm just sharing my story here.
Speaker:It felt sort of like a weekly obligation that we just all tried
Speaker:to do more than anything else.
Speaker:As an adult, I came to faith in Jesus at a business event.
Speaker:The reason I bring that up is wasn't at a church service.
Speaker:I didn't do an altar call there.
Speaker:It was actually a business function with a lot of business people in a coliseum.
Speaker:So I might have a different.
Speaker:Perspective about the significance of the weekly buildings, the, the, the
Speaker:buildings all over the United States and other parts of the world that
Speaker:have a weekly service that people come to or they're expected to come to.
Speaker:so didn't really do a traditional alter call or anything like that.
Speaker:It was at a business event, a bunch of business people.
Speaker:and the church setting still wasn't really my natural environment.
Speaker:I enjoyed business settings and all much more.
Speaker:But once I started following Jesus, and you tell people you're a Christian
Speaker:and you're a Jesus follower, they start telling you, now you need to go to church.
Speaker:Where do you go to church?
Speaker:And I figured, you know what?
Speaker:I have to start going to church.
Speaker:That's just what you do, right?
Speaker:That is one of the things you do to punch your ticket.
Speaker:Whatever that ticket means.
Speaker:You know, Hey, I'm a good card carrying Christian, I'm going to heaven.
Speaker:Look, I go to church every Sunday.
Speaker:I've only missed two in the last year, whatever.
Speaker:Something like that.
Speaker:Sorry for the sarcasm, but anyway, I think most of y'all are getting the point.
Speaker:So I went and I kind of got tired of it, tired of the tradition
Speaker:that made very little sense.
Speaker:I gravitated toward churches that might have been less traditional.
Speaker:But still they were churches and after something happens every two or three
Speaker:weeks, it becomes a tradition for that environment, that atmosphere, that
Speaker:denomination, that, that type of church.
Speaker:I really got tired of what I can only describe as mealy mouth preaching
Speaker:from, from a lot of areas that at times felt manipulative or showy or.
Speaker:celebrity oriented and the music and things like that felt that way.
Speaker:And I got tired of watching the same people in the pews on Sunday who
Speaker:I saw the rest of the week often.
Speaker:And, you know, they weren't living any differently or seeing any growth.
Speaker:I. Often, I'll use the word here, that's pretty strong.
Speaker:They were hypocrites.
Speaker:They acted one way on Sunday and then a different way
Speaker:throughout the rest of the week.
Speaker:Didn't like that, didn't care for that, but I kept going.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because the Bible says you have to go to church.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:But then something happened.
Speaker:We went through a pretty devastating financial collapse after oh eight.
Speaker:I've shared it before here on the podcast, and we became homeless, and
Speaker:so we were not in our comfortable little house in our little area.
Speaker:We were traveling in our Honda van.
Speaker:A few belongings, and we would feel like we needed to visit
Speaker:some churches along the way.
Speaker:You know, you're supposed to go to church every Sunday, so let's find some.
Speaker:So we were popping in and out.
Speaker:Well, if you're traveling the local churches, they don't
Speaker:know what to do with you.
Speaker:They can't, they can't really connect well with you because they expect
Speaker:and want people that come every week.
Speaker:Tried a little bit of that.
Speaker:We actually traveled overseas in Australia and New Zealand and went to some
Speaker:churches over there and just, something just didn't seem right, you know?
Speaker:I kept noticing too, again, more of a business guy that,
Speaker:you know, it seems as if.
Speaker:These are operating more like an enterprise.
Speaker:You know, they need people to show up and pay the bills.
Speaker:And the method for keeping people coming was a powerful one.
Speaker:And that was guilt and fear.
Speaker:Guilt about not attending, fear about what happens if you don't.
Speaker:And that combination super powerful.
Speaker:I can tell you what, you could get a lot of things done with those,
Speaker:and especially if you earn under.
Speaker:If it has an undercurrent of God says so, or it's in the Bible, that's a
Speaker:powerful, powerful, powerful emotion there that can get people to do some
Speaker:things that you want them to do.
Speaker:So after we went to Bible school, we moved into an RV and kept traveling.
Speaker:More churches, but you know what?
Speaker:I just sort of got less and less, desiring to attend.
Speaker:Just got tired of the same two message.
Speaker:This is where God is.
Speaker:And make sure you're here every week.
Speaker:God comes here.
Speaker:This is home.
Speaker:Make sure you're here.
Speaker:And then also, of course, we've heard this one.
Speaker:This is where you sow your money.
Speaker:Sew your money where you're being fed, this is where you
Speaker:tithe, send your money here.
Speaker:So I just sort of kind of got a little bit tired of that.
Speaker:And as I was doing that, I went.
Speaker:To church less and less, but I wasn't disconnected and I wasn't
Speaker:anti-God or Jesus or anything.
Speaker:I actually started studying more.
Speaker:I wasn't connected to a local person that was telling me certain things
Speaker:every week, and I really wasn't tied to a TV teacher, preacher either.
Speaker:I was just studying the Bible more and more, figuring some things out,
Speaker:probably messing some things up, but just spending more and more time.
Speaker:Something interesting happened the less I was being spoonfed by someone who
Speaker:claimed to be more spiritual in me.
Speaker:It seemed like the more I actually understood it, I stopped outsourcing
Speaker:my faith and I took responsibility for it, partially because we
Speaker:weren't around a local church, but partially because I started feeling
Speaker:like that's what I should do.
Speaker:And that journey is what led me to this question is going to church.
Speaker:Actually in the Bible, do I need to, even though I'm traveling and
Speaker:moving around, do I need to find a local church and get connected to it?
Speaker:Is it a command?
Speaker:Or did someone build a system and then find a verse to hold it up?
Speaker:I'm about to show you the verse that they use, and then I'm gonna show you the
Speaker:rest of it and how it fits in context.
Speaker:But I gotta tell you, I'm actually recording this on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker:And this is the way my day has gone, because many people will say,
Speaker:well, you know, if you don't go to church, you're probably not going
Speaker:to be growing in the Lord and doing the things that would Lord have.
Speaker:Lord would have you.
Speaker:To do well today, and I'm recording this.
Speaker:It's almost 3:00 PM where I am here.
Speaker:I'm on the east coast now.
Speaker:I'm just outside of the Atlanta area, and I have probably been studying
Speaker:and doing biblical research for the entire day, starting at about 7:00 AM.
Speaker:I spent a long period of time this morning in the book of Revelation, and
Speaker:then later I was working on a few things related to these episodes, and so I
Speaker:guess the point I'm making, I'm not.
Speaker:Trying to pat myself on the back.
Speaker:I'm telling you that you do not have to be always connected on a Sunday.
Speaker:It's important day connected with a local body.
Speaker:Not saying that's bad.
Speaker:I'll talk more about that later, but, but you can.
Speaker:Dig and learn and get very well connected with your Heavenly Father
Speaker:just by doing some personal study.
Speaker:That's what I've been doing today.
Speaker:So anyway, let's look at the verse that everyone knows about.
Speaker:If you grew up in church, you probably heard it, it's probably
Speaker:been quoted at you more than once.
Speaker:Do not neglect to meet together.
Speaker:As is the habit of Psalm.
Speaker:It's the go-to passage for guilt tripping people into Sunday.
Speaker:Attendance missed a few Sundays.
Speaker:This is the verse thinking about stepping back from church, not going as much.
Speaker:This verse comes up in fact.
Speaker:For many of us, it pops up in our head and we're not sure how
Speaker:it does it, it just, it's there.
Speaker:It's embedded there because we've heard it, we've been brainwashed.
Speaker:We've been, we've been told that verse over and over again, skeptical
Speaker:about whether or not you need to be in a building every week.
Speaker:This verse comes up.
Speaker:It's been doing that job for decades and probably centuries.
Speaker:But here's the deal.
Speaker:We've been reading in context, we've been reading in order.
Speaker:There is a second half to that sentence and it rarely, like most scriptures that
Speaker:do these type things, rarely comes up when people preach or mention this verse.
Speaker:So we're actually going to look at the whole sentence and
Speaker:the whole verse in context.
Speaker:All right, here is the whole verse.
Speaker:Hebrews 10 24 through 25, and let us consider how to stir up one another to
Speaker:love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of P some,
Speaker:but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Speaker:Now stop there.
Speaker:There's obviously more going on in that verse two verses actually than just,
Speaker:you gotta go to church every Sunday.
Speaker:We have the day drawing near.
Speaker:This is not necessarily a timeless command about weekly institutional attendance.
Speaker:It.
Speaker:It really is, and this is what we've been reading in context.
Speaker:It's an urgent call to a specific community facing a
Speaker:specific event on the horizon.
Speaker:The day the writer of Hebrews is pointing to.
Speaker:Is the judgment of Jerusalem, the end of the temple system, the event that Jesus
Speaker:had been warning about for a generation.
Speaker:If we go back to the episode last week, this generation, it.
Speaker:It was something that would occur within this generation that Jesus spoke about.
Speaker:That was what was on the horizon.
Speaker:Very soon.
Speaker:Hebrews was written in about 63, 80 63, and about seven years later, 80, 70.
Speaker:The destruction of the temple that day, the end of the age,
Speaker:the day of the Lord would occur.
Speaker:What the writer is saying is, do not drift apart.
Speaker:Now you are connected to a group of people because the thing we've
Speaker:been waiting for, the old covenant passing away, the new covenant being
Speaker:the only covenant in existence.
Speaker:It's here.
Speaker:It's coming, the coming of Christ, the revealing of Christ
Speaker:and his kingdom is coming.
Speaker:You need each other more than you ever have.
Speaker:That was the message in 63, 64, 65 AD as it was building up to the destruction
Speaker:and the end of the, the destruction of the temple and the end of the age.
Speaker:That's why we have to understand it in context now.
Speaker:Before we do that, I don't want to do what others have done
Speaker:by taking one scripture out.
Speaker:And even if I'm using that scripture to say something against what it was
Speaker:used for, I wanna look at as many other scriptures as we can to make sure that
Speaker:I am not, let's just say, twisting that scripture in the other direction.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:There are a number of scriptures that reference something that could be
Speaker:considered a church or a gathering, and so I want us to go through
Speaker:them and try to see what they mean in context to see if I'm wrong.
Speaker:One of the things that I do often in my Bible studies is I ask this
Speaker:question, I'll say, what if I'm wrong?
Speaker:What if I am wrong?
Speaker:And I many times will attempt to prove that I'm wrong, which kind of helps me
Speaker:either do that, which is one of the things that's opened up a lot of the questions
Speaker:that I'm on a journey of discovering right now, but it will also often make
Speaker:me even firmer in what I have discovered.
Speaker:So we're gonna look at these honestly, and then we're going
Speaker:to look on the primary text.
Speaker:So Hebrews 10 25, the one we just looked at.
Speaker:It's not the only verse that's used to build the case for church attendance.
Speaker:It just seems to be the main one that people use.
Speaker:Let me address the others briefly so that we're being fair.
Speaker:To the whole picture and then I, I attempted to pull all of the verses that
Speaker:are what I'll call, go to church verses.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:Let's look at Acts two.
Speaker:And this is a pretty big section here, 42 through 47.
Speaker:It talks about the early church.
Speaker:I'm not giving the exact, but I, I'll give some of the things here.
Speaker:The early church devoted themselves to fellowship and were together.
Speaker:Daily.
Speaker:This is real.
Speaker:This is what was going on.
Speaker:this was people that had to have each other.
Speaker:They were in the midst.
Speaker:I'll mention this in a little while, but they were in the midst of two
Speaker:kingdoms that were pressing on them.
Speaker:So it was almost survival that they had to come together.
Speaker:They did gather, but look at how, how they did it daily.
Speaker:In homes at meals, breaking bread together, not necessarily weekly getting
Speaker:all dressed up, getting in their car, driving to a service where sometimes it
Speaker:takes longer to get in and out that you than you actually spend doing worship
Speaker:or listening to preaching teaching.
Speaker:not necessarily weekly.
Speaker:That's not what they were doing.
Speaker:They were usually huddled together in homes.
Speaker:So, not necessarily a formal study.
Speaker:If this is your model for church, you are describing something
Speaker:very different from Sunday.
Speaker:Morning attendance.
Speaker:So that's what we saw in acts.
Speaker:All right, let's look at Acts 20 verse seven.
Speaker:On the first day of the week, we came together to break bread.
Speaker:This is one reference to one gathering.
Speaker:On one occasion, it is used to establish Sunday is the mandatory
Speaker:gathering day, which is fine, but it is still really one verse one meeting.
Speaker:Doing a lot of heavy lifting to try to say, this is what you have to
Speaker:do a thousand or 2000 years later, is you've got to meet on a Sunday.
Speaker:Then let's look at Matthew 1820, where two or three are gathered
Speaker:in my name there am I among them?
Speaker:It's used to suggest God is specially present in formal.
Speaker:Church gatherings.
Speaker:Read the context though.
Speaker:Jesus is actually talking about resolving conflict between believers.
Speaker:It's an instruction for reconciliation and a way to get
Speaker:along with people, not necessarily a theology of weekly attendance.
Speaker:Now it, it.
Speaker:Could be taken as when people are gathered together, he is there.
Speaker:Yes, it could be that, but definitely standalone and definitely when
Speaker:plucked out, not something that says you gotta go to church every week.
Speaker:This is the reason why.
Speaker:Let's go to Ephesians four 11 through 16, the body.
Speaker:Needs each connected part to grow.
Speaker:This is probably the strongest of the supporting passages.
Speaker:There's something real here about mutual dependence in community, but it does
Speaker:not prescribe a service format or a time or a place or a weekly schedule
Speaker:or a building or anything like that.
Speaker:It really.
Speaker:Describes relationship and relationship that's strong with a core group of
Speaker:people that, like I said earlier, are almost hanging on for survival.
Speaker:So not necessarily an institution like we see today.
Speaker:Matthew 1618 is the next scripture I will build my.
Speaker:Church used broadly to justify the institution.
Speaker:The word there that we see in this scripture and also in others is Ecclesia.
Speaker:It means called out assembly or group called out people.
Speaker:People gathered around a common identity.
Speaker:That identity during the first century.
Speaker:I, I wanna be very clear on this.
Speaker:From reading the New Testament in context, it is very clear that that
Speaker:identity that was common for those believers was that they believed in Jesus
Speaker:Christ that died and was resurrected.
Speaker:That resurrection belief is the thing that separated them from the Roman Empire.
Speaker:And from the Jewish temple structure, the two kingdoms, if
Speaker:you will, that they were wedged in between and it made them dangerous.
Speaker:It actually created a danger for their lives because they were so different
Speaker:and so anti those two kingdoms.
Speaker:So, they were gathered around that identity.
Speaker:That was the called out assembly.
Speaker:Ecclesia, not a building.
Speaker:Not a scheduled service, a community, a group of people.
Speaker:So here's the honest summary.
Speaker:None of those passages read in full context, produce a command to attend
Speaker:a weekly institutional service.
Speaker:They might show some value in doing it if it's done in the right way, but the
Speaker:early church gathered enthusiastically, sometimes outta fear regularly at a real.
Speaker:Cost, but the gathering looked nothing like what we call going to church.
Speaker:For those listening, I just did air quotes on the video.
Speaker:Going to church today.
Speaker:Hebrews 10 25 Though going back to that, it's the verse that really
Speaker:gets quoted most directly and most.
Speaker:Often to mandate or guilt attendance.
Speaker:So that is what we're going to focus on for just a little while here, because
Speaker:if the primary proof text does not say what we have been told, it says the
Speaker:whole argument deserves a second look.
Speaker:N. Now let's look at why this matters, because some people might be saying, you
Speaker:know what, maybe it's just semantics.
Speaker:What difference does it make?
Speaker:Let me just keep doing this and I'm going to, you know, say to my friends,
Speaker:Hey, where were you on Sunday?
Speaker:Why weren't you in church?
Speaker:And hey, are you backsliding brother?
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:You know, I haven't seen you in church lately.
Speaker:Those type things.
Speaker:It could just be semantics.
Speaker:Well.
Speaker:Let me be clear.
Speaker:It is not.
Speaker:So when you say, why does it matter?
Speaker:I show up here a sermon.
Speaker:What is the harm?
Speaker:Let me give you some of the things that could be a harm.
Speaker:They may not be definitive, but they could be when you go out of guilt or
Speaker:you're going so that you can guilt others, you're training yourself
Speaker:or others to relate to God through.
Speaker:Obligation.
Speaker:An obligation is the opposite of relationship.
Speaker:When you believe church attendance is how you get right with
Speaker:God or stay right with God.
Speaker:You've handed your spiritual standing to an institution.
Speaker:That institution now has leverage over you.
Speaker:Guilt and fear are extremely effective tools for keeping
Speaker:people in seats and getting money.
Speaker:The New Testament never authorized that arrangement.
Speaker:And then when the building becomes the place where God is, the place you go to
Speaker:get some God for the week, you have shrunk the kingdom down to a zip code or an
Speaker:address and a Sunday morning time slot.
Speaker:You've taken this big, huge.
Speaker:Thing that is the kingdom of God and you've shrunk it down to a 10:00 AM
Speaker:service in a building with a fog machine, with three songs, one sermon, and,
Speaker:greet some people and head out the door.
Speaker:It's much, much bigger than that.
Speaker:This is not just a small theological era.
Speaker:It shapes how you live every other day of the week.
Speaker:If God is primarily at the building.
Speaker:And I, as I traveled and I saw this time and time again, there was this,
Speaker:sometimes subtle, but often not so subtle.
Speaker:This is where God is.
Speaker:This is why you come here, because God is here now.
Speaker:Is God there?
Speaker:Yes, but is God other places.
Speaker:Yes, is God where the believers are?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That doesn't necessarily mean they have to be at a location on a Sunday morning.
Speaker:So what it basically says is that Monday through Saturday you're on your own.
Speaker:Good luck.
Speaker:Hope it works out.
Speaker:Make sure you get back here on Sunday to fill up your tank again so that you can
Speaker:go out and live in that world out there.
Speaker:That horrible, horrible world out there that is just trying
Speaker:to get the best of you.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Anyway, that's part of the theological challenge there.
Speaker:But if you are the temple, if it is you now, if the kingdom is already inside you
Speaker:and expanding outward through you, then every conversation, every relationship,
Speaker:every ordinary Tuesday is sacred.
Speaker:Ground.
Speaker:Every place that you put your foot, every word that comes out, every interaction,
Speaker:every relationship, everything you do becomes sacred ground, not just
Speaker:during a time on a Sunday morning.
Speaker:And then there's one more thing that doesn't get said enough.
Speaker:Now it's gonna be a little bit dicey here.
Speaker:But when you build a system, and I have seen this time and time again,
Speaker:and as a guy who has somewhat built my life and career around leadership,
Speaker:building leaders, coaching leaders, working with leaders in both
Speaker:ministry and business situations.
Speaker:this is a dangerous thing that I'm about to talk about.
Speaker:When you build a system where people believe they must show up, they must
Speaker:give and they must submit to leadership.
Speaker:In order to stay right with God, you have created the.
Speaker:Perfect condition for abuse.
Speaker:And when I say that, some of you might go, oh no you don't,
Speaker:But you know many examples, we see them every day of where someone
Speaker:has been put on a pedestal.
Speaker:They are believed to be the leader of this place where God is.
Speaker:And so people show up and they bow down to that person and that
Speaker:person probably can't handle all of that, and it just creates an.
Speaker:Much too easy atmosphere and environment for abuse to happen.
Speaker:And that abuse can run the gamut.
Speaker:And it's not just financial manipulation and it's not just mental abuse.
Speaker:We all know it can be physical and it can also be spiritual.
Speaker:And I don't want to get dark here, but we see it time and time again.
Speaker:And the root of some of it.
Speaker:It is this mindset that God says, I have to go to church every Sunday.
Speaker:This is the church that's near me.
Speaker:I'm going to go to this place.
Speaker:It's emotional control and the kind of damage that takes years
Speaker:to undo it damages the soul.
Speaker:And that is something that we've got to overcome and not allow.
Speaker:We see it all the time.
Speaker:You see it all the time.
Speaker:High profile scandals, controlling pastors, churches that isolate people
Speaker:from family and friends who are not part of their club, who are not members
Speaker:in environments where questioning leadership is treated as questioning God.
Speaker:I've said it before.
Speaker:I saw it in the Bible school setting.
Speaker:I was in, I was told point blank.
Speaker:We.
Speaker:The leaders, we hear from God you don't.
Speaker:And that was the exact quote that I was told so many times.
Speaker:That is what's fostered in church settings where people believe they
Speaker:have to go because that's where they go to get God every week.
Speaker:None of that can exist without the foundational belief that this
Speaker:institution, this organization, this building, this place has authority
Speaker:over your standing with God.
Speaker:Remove that.
Speaker:Take that belief away.
Speaker:Show people that their relationship with God is not mediated by a building
Speaker:or a leader, and the lever that makes abuse possible is gone, then it
Speaker:becomes a much healthier relationship.
Speaker:This is not a small thing.
Speaker:This is actually really big.
Speaker:Don't have time to get into it more here.
Speaker:But just take that and continue thinking about that is really the game of control
Speaker:and manipulation that we see in many churches, organizations, Bible schools,
Speaker:when I saw it, and things like that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Y'all could tell I was getting a little bit excited there.
Speaker:A little bit jacked up.
Speaker:I'll try to calm down here.
Speaker:So let's look at the audience and what.
Speaker:The day was, that was brought up in Hebrews.
Speaker:This is the context that we really wanna look at.
Speaker:That spun off when I was actually reading the New Testament in context.
Speaker:This was the thought process that came to me.
Speaker:The audience, The letter to the Hebrews was written around 80, 63, like I
Speaker:said earlier, and it was primarily to Jewish believers that had believed in.
Speaker:The Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Speaker:And like I said earlier, the resurrection.
Speaker:So that was the audience, James, when that occurred in around
Speaker:80, 63, the Lord's brother had just been martyred in Jerusalem.
Speaker:The temple was still standing, the priesthood was still operating.
Speaker:The sacrificial system was still running.
Speaker:But the clock was ticking the temple, now that we know, they may not have known,
Speaker:but it only had about seven years left.
Speaker:These were people under enormous pressure following.
Speaker:Jesus had a social cost If you were Jewish and you made the decision
Speaker:to follow the Messiah, Jesus family relationships were strained.
Speaker:The pull back toward the familiar old system was real.
Speaker:Really the entire message of Hebrews, don't go back.
Speaker:Don't go back to that old temple system and that old covenant, because the new Co
Speaker:covenant, the new Messiah Covenant exists.
Speaker:It has been implemented but not quite fulfilled.
Speaker:It was already, but not yet.
Speaker:The fulfillment would occur within a few years as the old Covenant
Speaker:was judged and, and put away.
Speaker:Some were already drifting.
Speaker:The writer references the habit of some that we saw in that verse
Speaker:who had already stopped gathering.
Speaker:They started breaking away from these small house gatherings, not
Speaker:because they forgot and said, oh, you know, I overslept on a Sunday.
Speaker:No, that's not.
Speaker:they really stopped gathering because the cost was too high.
Speaker:It was too difficult, but here is what most people do not realize.
Speaker:For this audience, gathering was not just spiritually important.
Speaker:It actually may have been literally life or death.
Speaker:Jewish believers in Jesus were caught between the two worlds I mentioned
Speaker:earlier, the Jewish community.
Speaker:Increasingly viewed them as traitors.
Speaker:The Roman authorities viewed them as a sect of a religion that
Speaker:was heading toward open revolt.
Speaker:That started in AD 66.
Speaker:Just a few years after this was written.
Speaker:Tension in Judea was building toward what would become the
Speaker:Jewish Roman War of 80, 66 to 70.
Speaker:When you said Jesus is Lord in the first century, it was not just a personal
Speaker:faith statement, it was a direct political challenge in Rome, Caesar was.
Speaker:Lord, that was the official title, the Official Religion of the Empire.
Speaker:Confessing Jesus as Lord was an act of rebellion.
Speaker:It carried real consequences, social, economic, sometimes violent.
Speaker:As James had just seen, many of these Jewish believers had been cut off
Speaker:by their families and communities to follow Jesus as a Jewish person.
Speaker:In the first century was to be declared a traitor.
Speaker:You lost your synagogue, you lost your network, you lost your social standing.
Speaker:In many cases, you lost your family.
Speaker:So they gathered because they had to not as spiritual discipline
Speaker:because they had nowhere else to go.
Speaker:They were building a new community out of the wreckage of the old one.
Speaker:Under the pressure of Rome, under the rejection of their families, watching
Speaker:the war build toward the destruction of everything they had known that
Speaker:temple structure was the foundation of those that came out of the nation of
Speaker:Israel, the Jewish temple, old Covenant.
Speaker:Structure gathering together was how they warned each other,
Speaker:encouraged each other, and made decisions together about what to do.
Speaker:And also there was kind of a practical aspect to it.
Speaker:Eusebius records in his ecclesiastical history that Jewish Christians fled
Speaker:Jerusalem before the siege of 80 70.
Speaker:They escaped to Pella a decision that required coordination,
Speaker:shared information, and community.
Speaker:You couldn't make that call alone in isolation.
Speaker:Jesus warned them about that and kind of told them to do that.
Speaker:Go to the mountains.
Speaker:The ones who had drifted from that community who had stopped gathering
Speaker:were the ones most at risk of missing.
Speaker:Warning of being caught in the city when the walls closed in,
Speaker:when it was destroyed, when it was besieged by the Roman legions.
Speaker:So when the writer says, do not neglect to meet together in Hebrews, all the
Speaker:more, as you see the day drawing near he.
Speaker:Or this might be a later episode, she could have been, the writer of Hebrews
Speaker:is not talking about a spiritual discipline for personal growth.
Speaker:He or she is talking about survival.
Speaker:But here's the point that has to be made clearly.
Speaker:This is not about our context.
Speaker:We are not living under Roman imperial religion.
Speaker:We're not being excommunicated from our families for saying Jesus is Lord.
Speaker:We're not watching our city about to be surrounded by legions from the Roman army.
Speaker:We do not wanna manufacture the tribulations and trials that
Speaker:drove the first century church to gather out of necessity.
Speaker:We thankfully do not have to live that way.
Speaker:Hallelujah.
Speaker:That would be a strange thing to wish for.
Speaker:The command to gather was a response to a crisis.
Speaker:The crisis passed.
Speaker:What remains is the principle underneath it Encourage one another.
Speaker:Stir each other up toward love and good works.
Speaker:At the beginning of that verse, that still applies the crisis level urgency does not.
Speaker:So let's talk a little bit about the day that is mentioned in that
Speaker:scripture throughout Hebrews the day.
Speaker:Day of the Lord into the age, et cetera, throughout really the New Testament.
Speaker:It's a reference to a coming event, not a distant or abstract future judgment.
Speaker:Hebrews 9 26 says He has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages,
Speaker:Hebrews eight 13, the old Covenant.
Speaker:Is obsolete and aging and ready to vanish away the same urgency
Speaker:runs through the whole letter.
Speaker:The old system is ending.
Speaker:The new has arrived.
Speaker:Do not go back.
Speaker:Hold on the day.
Speaker:Is coming, and we discussed this in the last episode.
Speaker:This generation, Jesus said it in the Olivet discourse, Matthew 24 34.
Speaker:This generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Speaker:The generation was.
Speaker:Their generation.
Speaker:The event occurred in 70 ad the writer of Hebrews is standing inside that same
Speaker:40 year window, the cross 30 ad roughly to the destruction of the temple 70 ad.
Speaker:We know that historically, one generation do not quit in the last few years.
Speaker:Of the race.
Speaker:So having said all that, now let's take a look at why.
Speaker:Based on this we would gather.
Speaker:So let's look at some of those items.
Speaker:Look at what the verse actually says.
Speaker:The gathering is for.
Speaker:Encouraging one another, stirring one another, up to love and good works.
Speaker:Not necessarily liturgy, not a service format, not attendance
Speaker:on a particular day of the week.
Speaker:Mutual encouragement, active.
Speaker:Care showing up for each other before a storm hits.
Speaker:The gathering was not the point.
Speaker:The people were the point and the urgency was tied to a specific
Speaker:historical moment, not an open-ended institutional obligation.
Speaker:let's look at a few things here.
Speaker:What got built on top?
Speaker:Of this verse, this is where we're gonna look at what's going on in the modern
Speaker:church and see how it may relate to that.
Speaker:Somewhere between the first century and today, that verse about an
Speaker:urgent mutual encouragement before specific and historical event
Speaker:became the theological foundation for mandatory weekly institutional.
Speaker:Attendance.
Speaker:The day arrived AD 70 happened.
Speaker:The old system ended.
Speaker:The urgency of that moment passed, but the verse stayed, and
Speaker:the way it got applied changed.
Speaker:Instead of encourage each other before the day is almost here, it
Speaker:became you must be in a building every Sunday or you a disobeying scripture.
Speaker:You see how we twist those things and the Sunday service, the church building
Speaker:the attendance requirement, none of that.
Speaker:Is in this verse.
Speaker:None of it is actually in the New Testament.
Speaker:The early church met in homes.
Speaker:Many of them almost lived together in courtyards at meals.
Speaker:They did not have buildings for the first 200 years.
Speaker:They would not have understood what going to church meant,
Speaker:what they would've understood.
Speaker:Is what Hebrews 10 24 says.
Speaker:Stir one another up to love and good works.
Speaker:Be present for each other, encourage one another.
Speaker:That is the instruction, not a service format.
Speaker:All right, now here's what we want to do.
Speaker:Now, what does that mean for us today?
Speaker:And I think this is why it's so important to read the New Testament context, not to
Speaker:push it back 2000 years and put it in a box and say, okay, that's what it meant.
Speaker:None of that means anything for us.
Speaker:I think for me it's meant understanding the context so then I can make it make
Speaker:sense for me today versus taking it out of context and trying to, you know,
Speaker:square peg, round hole type thing in two thousands and, trying to make it work.
Speaker:I wanna say this clearly.
Speaker:Church is not a bad thing.
Speaker:I'm not saying that here.
Speaker:Gathering with other people who follow Jesus is not a bad thing.
Speaker:I'm not telling anyone to leave a church or not go, but here's what I am
Speaker:saying, but don't go because of guilt.
Speaker:Do not go because mama says go.
Speaker:And I know I have just touched on sacred ground that if Mama says
Speaker:it, you're supposed to do it.
Speaker:Don't do it because Mama said don't go because you think that is how
Speaker:you punch your ticket to heaven.
Speaker:Or stay in good standing with God.
Speaker:None of that is in the Bible, none of it.
Speaker:It is okay to not go.
Speaker:I just told you about my day.
Speaker:It's a Sunday.
Speaker:I don't feel guilt or remorse.
Speaker:In fact, it's been an incredible day with the Lord and it
Speaker:continues with this right here.
Speaker:But it is okay to go.
Speaker:Both are okay.
Speaker:What is not okay is going for the wrong reason and calling it faithfulness.
Speaker:The right reason to gather with other believers is not because God is in that
Speaker:building and you need to go get some.
Speaker:God is not more present in a church building than he is in your kitchen,
Speaker:your car, your conversations.
Speaker:The right reason is this.
Speaker:You have so much love.
Speaker:Flowing out of your relationship with him, that you have in your personal
Speaker:time, your quiet time, that any time of your day, You have so much love flowing
Speaker:out of your relationship with him.
Speaker:So much growth, so much life.
Speaker:That you just wanna be around other people who feel the same thing.
Speaker:You go because you have something to give, not because you have a debt to pay.
Speaker:That is a completely different.
Speaker:Posture.
Speaker:I will argue that if people are showing up with a debt to pay, it goes back to
Speaker:that unhealthy situation that we often see in many of our church settings.
Speaker:That leads to challenges and issues.
Speaker:Imagine what an environment would be when people are gathering just because they.
Speaker:Overflowing with so much love in life, so much light that it becomes just a
Speaker:powerful gathering that is a dangerous group of people that's gathering
Speaker:together, that is a group that could have huge impact on the world in
Speaker:advancing and spreading his kingdom.
Speaker:That's just totally, totally different and it produces a
Speaker:completely different experience.
Speaker:When you go out of abundance instead of obligation, you stop
Speaker:counting the Sundays, you missed.
Speaker:You stop performing for the people in the pews.
Speaker:You stop needing the institution to validate your faith.
Speaker:You just show up because you want to, and you bring something real when you do.
Speaker:The kingdom is not located at a street address.
Speaker:It is already in you, and when you live from that, gathering
Speaker:with others becomes one of the most natural things in the world.
Speaker:Not because you have to, but because you want to.
Speaker:You're drawn to others that do just that.
Speaker:Do not neglect to meet together is not a command to fill a
Speaker:seat or go to a building.
Speaker:It is a call to be present for each other urgently because something
Speaker:significant is happening the day that verse was pointing to has already come.
Speaker:What remains is the instruction underneath it encourage one another.
Speaker:Stir each other up toward love and good works.
Speaker:That still applies.
Speaker:The attendance requirement does not.
Speaker:Here's what I'll leave you with and I want to continue encouraging you.
Speaker:Read the text for yourself.
Speaker:In the order it was written.
Speaker:When you do that, the New Testament reads like one story told by one
Speaker:generation and it will change.
Speaker:You don't forget, you can actually get this reading
Speaker:plan and read it for yourself.
Speaker:The free 90 day reading plan is at K two M Foundation slash.
Speaker:NT 90 downloaded.
Speaker:Start wherever you are.
Speaker:You can start at the beginning, read through.
Speaker:You could jump around.
Speaker:I really do think at some point you need to start at the beginning, first book
Speaker:written that we have as James, and go all the way through for the next 20 plus
Speaker:years to the last book that was written.
Speaker:Written, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revealing of.
Speaker:Christ.
Speaker:And here's the thing, if, if what you find does not match what you
Speaker:were taught, pay attention to that.
Speaker:That's the way the scripture unfolded to the original audience.
Speaker:Alright, next episode, they called them sinners.
Speaker:I kept seeing as I read the New Testament in context, this word
Speaker:sinner, and I kept thinking.
Speaker:It doesn't seem to mean what I thought it meant.
Speaker:They were called sinners.
Speaker:Jesus actually called and invited them in.
Speaker:The word doesn't mean what I thought it meant.
Speaker:You'll not wanna miss that one.
Speaker:We could be redefining the word sin.
Speaker:All right, I am Tim Winders.
Speaker:Thanks for listening in here.
Speaker:Remember, do not take my word for any of this.
Speaker:Study it.
Speaker:For yourself.
Speaker:Do I Have to Go to Church?
Speaker:| NT90Do I Have to Go to Church?
Speaker:| NT90
