Four Simple Words

Back in my college days a few of us would occasionally play a game that went something like this:  someone calls out a book and chapter in the New Testament and someone else would call out a verse or verses in that chapter they knew by heart.  It was always interesting to see which verses got mentioned.

Hebrews chapter ten was always interesting and usually predictable.  I can't remember a time when that chapter was called out that someone didn't give 10:25-31 as their textual reference. Most of the time it was 10:25.

Remember how it goes? “…not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Walking across campus one day it dawned on me that Hebrews 10:25 had been made "famous" in our memories because it was a well-used text in sermons and gospel meetings. It was one of those "wake you up and get you to church" verses. It is a hard-hitting text and definitely deserves our attention especially given the malaise that is in so many lives at the moment. But as I thought about this text I was struck by how little attention had been given to 10:24. We had gone to Hebrews 10 for a particular text for so many years that we had overlooked an important piece of the writer's exhortation and, a piece that provided much of the potential remedy for the dark side of what 10:25ff speaks to.

Remember what Hebrews 10:24 says? "Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works..."

10:25 is actually the continuation of a sentence that began in 10:24.  Attention to grammar alone should have pressed us backwards into 10:24 for a more complete picture of 10:25-31.  It is true that we can become so accustomed to looking at something from a certain perspective that we can’t see what's really there.

Hebrews as a "word of exhortation" (13:22) was read to the gathered church. But, the gathered church is reminded about what they – and every person! - need to do for each other beyond the confines of gathered church. As the scattered church they are to take care of one another. But, you can't take care of what you don't pay attention to! Several texts in the book of Hebrews resonate with this “take care of one another” idea.

Staying connected to gospel and community was contingent on their attention to each other as individuals beyond the gathered church experience.

In the space between gathered church and the disconnect from each other that is becoming characteristic of all too many churches, sin, deception, and spiritual numbness can grow steadily and completely. And, as odd as it sounds, our fixation on gathered church has become a red herring of sorts. We are so focused on tweaking and fine-tuning gathered church that we don't know how to (or do we want to.... really?) be there for each other as brothers and sisters. Authentic community gets lost as an assumed practice in all the hi-tech announcements, colorful handouts, heartfelt pleas, and pithy reminders to be about the Lord's business. We need more! We don't need information packaged more neatly, colorfully or articulated by our best speakers. We need healthy exhortation to become more human and personal in its implementation. We need to think and live more personally with each other.

To be in the body is to be in people's lives - not church as an idea, a place, a gathering per se. Authentic community (not the slick, high glossy, a place to belong, "come have a great experience among us" version) is intentionally constructed and maintained by individual believers with believers. I like the way someone put it the other day: great church is built on our excellence with small church. Churches don't hemorrhage people. People hemorrhage people. People let people walk away. Businesses come after you when you try to walk away. Why? They care about your business...your money....their profits....their reputation. What we do together in Jesus Christ is way more important than a quarterly profit report and a stock rating.

We need to bite into Hebrews 10:24 and chew on it for a long time. It has much to teach us! It calls us to see the person's with whom we live together in community. To know them. To pray for them. To think about how we can serve them and, when needed, encourage them into a place of strength. Doing so can help us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and to run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1-2). It reminds us that the responsibility tucked away in the new “us” created by our fellowship in the gospel is critical to helping “me” remain a part of the kingdom which cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:27-29).

Consider how to stir...

Four simple words worth our time. You want to stimulate your congregation? Turn those four words loose in your life.

 Randy Daugherty
Stephenville, Texas