Meeting together

Heb 10:24 Let us be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to do good.
Heb 10:25 Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer.


I have for over 40 years now heard Heb. 10:25a preached from the pulpit. "Forsake ye not the assembling together..." It seems to me that I have usually heard it preached when attendance is falling off and tithes are down. Maybe I'm just being my usual cynical self here...maybe. It's just that sometimes I wish I had some "God breathed and inspired" verse of scripture that I could use on my "customers" when business is slow. "Forget not to enter my store and buy provisions for thee and thine entire extended family". Wouldn't that be sweeeet?  Especially if it produced enough guilt to actually work.
Hey, I'm writing tongue in cheek so to speak. However, I don't believe that when that sermon has been preached I usually hear vs 24 spoken on. So here would be my slant on these two verses.  "Let's be concerned for one another. Let's show love and do good. Yeah, let's do it! Oh, and by the way, don't stop hanging out together the way some of you have been doing. We miss you and it's much harder to be concerned and show love for you when you're not around, especially as we know there are some rough times ahead of us." (paraphrase by Saint Mike)

Seriously, although I haven't been in "church" much lately, I don't have anything against going and it is good to do so...but, on the other hand, I've had some really awesome get togethers with friends these past several months. Like today, lunch with a brother I haven't seen in awhile. We had some really good conversation about what God has been doing in our lives. Compared views on scripture. Caught up on the past and the future. I guess you could say we encouraged each other to do good, to keep the faith. I'm pretty sure it qualified as "meeting together". Almost positive!

What say you?

The Ethics of Jesus or the Ethics of the Pharisees

I want to build off something Mark Buchanan writes about in chapter 11 of  Your God is too Safe. He says this, "The Pharisees had an ethic of avoidance, and Jesus had an ethic of involvement...They didn't ask, "How can I make others clean?" They asked, "How can I keep from getting dirty?" ... Jesus in sharp contrast got involved"... Rather than running from evil, He ran toward the good." (end quote)

So what do you make of that? It's a question to you and to me. Do you see Christians as "avoiding evil" or as being "involved" in the process of making others clean? This question is just another in the overarching question, "Does it matter how we live our lives."

There have been times in my life where I have only been interested in avoiding evil. I admit it. Close my eyes to the hurt, to the sin, to the dirt and if I sing loud enough, pray hard enough, fast long enough maybe it will all go away. Of late, I have been moving in the opposite direction, towards involvement. If I reach out, if I love, if I listen, if I risk THEN there is the possibility of change. Jesus did this everywhere He went. Should we, His followers, do any less?