Shelf Life
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:25 NASB
Assembling together– Does a community have a shelf life? Can a group exist only for so long before internal and external pressures force its demise? Have you experienced the decline in commitment in a once vibrant cohort? In all likelihood, you will answer “Yes” to these questions. It might really bother you to admit so, but the answer raises a very important question. “How do we keep from falling apart?”
Before we tackle that problem, let’s be sure we understand what this verse says and who the intended audience is. In Christian circles, the following assessment is typical:
“Very few people understand that the book of Hebrews was written primarily to the Hebrew Christians telling them to not go back under the bondage of Judaism. The verse ‘don’t forsake the assembly’ has nothing to do with joining a pastor’s church and assembling under him.”
But you and I don’t read Hebrews as if it were a Christian document. To do so is an anachronistic mistake. Hebrews is an exhortation, for sure, but it is not an exhortation to leave Judaism (a religion that also did not exist in the first century). This replacement theology is countered by scholars like Tim Hegg, who wrote:
“This grand book is full of great encouragement for believers in Yeshua to persevere in their faith and in so doing, to bring glory to the One Who has redeemed us and Who ‘always lives to make intercession’ for us (Heb 7:25). Hebrews speaks to the very issues that Messianics face as we seek to honor our Lord and Savior Yeshua by obeying His commandments and walking in His footsteps. This is because the Book of Hebrews consistently speaks to the core issues of what constitutes ‘saving faith,’ the object of which is Yeshua Himself, our great High Priest ministering on our behalf in the heavenly tabernacle.”[1]
Even the Greek tells us something important about the flavor of “assembly.” The word is episynagōgḗ, obviously grounded in a Hebrew view of community.[2] If Hebrews is written to Messianic believers, it is all the more important that we understand why Messianic communities struggle to stay together. This isn’t about “I didn’t like the music,” or “The sermons were all the same,” or “No one there really wants to dig into the Word.” Messianic communities aren’t built around social gatherings, although they certainly provide interaction and care. They are built around bringing glory to the Messiah. They are gatherings of hispeople who share their lives with each other in order to honor him in daily practice. Maybe that gives us some clues as to why such assemblies are so hard to maintain over time.
First, daily life really gets in the way. The world we live in is not, by any stretch, oriented toward Messianic practices. Everything about the world pushes us in the opposite direction, toward self-concerns, individualism and exclusion. That isn’t always bad, but it can be if it becomes an excuse for separation from compassionate commitment to others. The Messiah is honored when we love one another (he said so) and loving one another often means putting the other person in first place, putting aside our agendas in order to serve the other person.
Second, all collectives go through stages of growth and decline. If the assembly isn’t offering a safe place for others to join, then it will inevitably wither. Exclusion is not a Messianic idea. We don’t exist in order to keep ourselves apart from everyone else, although that might seem to be the solution to the pressures of the world. Monasteries and convents are not Messianic. The purpose of a Messianic assembly is to bring others in, and if the assembly isn’t actively encouraging joiners, it will fade. This isn’t cognitive evangelism. This is attraction by living. But there must always be an open door and a welcoming hand. The Messianic assembly is a place where broken lives heal and if your assembly isn’t looking for broken lives, then you’ve probably missed a necessary element of growth.
Finally, some warning is required. It’s easy to think that our little group is fine. We’re involved with each other. We care about each other. We like each other. But that won’t prevent decline. The closer we get to each other, the more our differences begin to show, and that creates vulnerability that is easily offended. Those little fissures can become chasms of unspoken separation. This is the really hard part—being willing to say, “Hey, something’s not working. I’m feeling outside.” There is no protection from the wound that we need. That wound is shared blood—brothers.
Topical Index: assembly, episynagōgḗ, Hebrews 10:25
[1]Tim Hegg, A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Volume 1, Chapters 1-8, p. 7.
[2]synagōgḗ occurs some 200 times in the LXX. It usually translates either ʿēḏâ or qāhāl.
Well I must say this is the day that the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it. For as sure as Yeshua was nailed to the cross or crucifixion stake, it’s topic nailed the situation at our congregation. Praise that I have gained the trust of our pastor and his rabbi, that I could articulate this message. With the heart of which was meant, and not the judgment which others have received. Today is the last day that I will make an attempt to Open the Eyes.
Brett, without knowing the details of your situation, you could be finding yourself at the start of a whole new way of living and walking! Be encouraged.
It was in the Land years ago, that I received this counsel from a Believer: “Live your life! When they are ready for the answer, they will ASK the question”. The apostle Peter gave a similar counsel (1 Pet 3:15). He must have been Jewish! ?
I would like to add a couple notes. If there is deep trauma in the lives of people that hasn’t been dealt with, that affects the size, who wants to deal with stuff yet and who doesn’t. Also, when dealing with the ‘stuff’, people ready to deal with ‘truth’ also plays into size. I’ve been learning how some run away for awhile until they’re ready to deal with another trauma. Fight, flight and freeze plays a major role in our assembly keeping together!
I would look forward to returning if they would allow me but they would want be like the others to repent for doing wrong. And that would not be correct. When the change comes about and the Holy Spirit is prevalent. That might be when I would return.
Thank you everyone for the words of encouragement. They will be added to the others with Thanksgiving and love thank you again everyone
Skip was the person who initially pounded home into my reality that without community, we are not even in a correct place to fully obey. Radical! And now apparently starting to be fully supported by the cutting edge of research into the recently discovered microbiome, which appears to operate in a very similar fashion to an obedient macroBody. (Imagine that!)
A cancer cell is a cell that has simply lost communication (information) with the life of the cells around it, and so (according to cancer bio-researcher Dr. Zach Bush, speaking for a currently airing info series about the microbiome called Interconnected) “goes rogue”. What that means – to me, anyway – is that all creation ( which was clearly built to support, as well as derive its own life from, the life around it) must have that full communication to ‘obey’ its design.
Life is a shared phenomenon; it cannot ‘be itself’ in the singular, as far as we can now tell. Dr. Bush hypothesizes that that rogue cancer cell, because it is now isolated, believes that it is the only life left, but because it is still obeying the mandate to live, decides to replicate. Problem is, instead of going through normal cell apoptosis, or, death (and thus releasing exactly ONE replica of itself, of course), BECAUSE it no longer can tell that there is still other life around it, decides to split – to clone – instead. That cloning, because it does not go through normally designed replication, wherein there are programmed fail-safes that would catch and correct any damage, ends up creating a whole lot of other cells that now (because of similar damage – the damage of being effectively isolated, or, fractured from the life around it), have exactly the same reaction to the situation as their ‘parent’ cell. These other faux ‘selves’ are isolated by means of the exact damage their parent cell is isolated: that damage BEING the isolation, or, the loss of the sense of being plugged in to the larger shared life around ‘it’.
According to Dr. Bush, we now know that there is nothing technically ‘wrong’ with a cancer cell other than its isolation. If we re-establish communication between that cell and others, it immediately goes back to normal programming – apoptosis when a certain level of damage is reached, and replication through design, where it merely replaces itself. How can we accomplish that? Apparently, our inner microbiome – our ‘other’ life living in us, provides most of the ability for our cells to communicate through DNA and RNA ‘information’ needed to link up. Life needs other life to be itself.
If we neglect assembly of ourselves – if we choose to isolate ourselves, then, does that turn us into a cancer cell: a cell focused on self-replication because it no longer possesses the ability to be a normal part of the larger life around it, but still needing to ‘do’ life by any means? (At that point, I want to ask Howard Hughes just how many bathrooms do those ‘other selves’ require?) What does it take for a rogue cell to get back out of looking to itself for life (literally “self imaging”), and return to (“repent”?) being a part of the life around it? Doesn’t that require the other life to reach out to those fractured cells that are damaging all life around them through their false belief that they are all alone? Don’t we stop others from damaging us by embracing them? Whoops! I think “evangelism” could have just taken a huge side turn!
Yesterday Theresa marveled that everything hinged on the word “believe”. Change that word into “trust”, and you will have the entire basis for life for the entire creation. Oh, by the way, trust is an action of embracing all other life. Trust (faith) is HOW we live. Apparently, the rest of creation still “remembers”.
Skip, timely and poignant article on the necessity of community. Laurita, amazing word picture of how community operates. Is it possible that living Torah literally breeds the health of our physical bodies?
Yes, Daniel; even according to boiler plate medical literature, trust, love, forgiveness, etc. have immediate and measurable effects on our health. Forgiveness, more than any other action, can be traced to many ‘miraculous’ turn-arounds for cancer, etc. You can read any mainstream psych journal you can pick to find out about how “trust issues” lie at the base of practically all mental illness, and so many gut issues are fundamentally about our sense of worth or lack (shame) thereof. This is all well recognized today, but because of the artificial separation of the medical disciplines (yep: they don’t ‘talk’ to each other – or, notably, the communities of faith – either!) the industry has, I believe, basically tied its own hands on what it would take to walk people back out of their holes. Personally, I think we need to quit ‘spiritualizing’ away the very basics of life!
Laurita, I hope you can access this article. It is difficult for me to accept that what happened in my ancestors lives 4+ generations ago may affect my reaction to my environment. There may be more physical changes at the cellular level than we have ever known.
Another interesting example: URL removed by Admin
John, please don’t use hyperlinks. You will need to just describe it in terms of title, etc. Dead links, when they go dead, effect the operation and SEO of this site.
Thanks!
I would love to, John. Just email the link to me if you could. Thanks a lot.
Simply brilliant (as usual). Thanks!
I can completely relate to all that Skip has written today…
Me too!
Great article Skip
It’s not “why” we’re meeting together and being
in community. It’s “who” has brought together and
keeps us in community . . . if we let Him.
The moment we loose sight of our love for Him
and our trust in Him, we’ll loose sight of everything.
This quote sums it all up, because when one is deeply engaged on the inside of the assembly, you may not see those that are hurting on the edges of the congregation. “The Messianic assembly is a place where broken lives heal and if your assembly isn’t looking for broken lives, then you’ve probably missed a necessary element of growth.”
Here is a wintertime analogy. The congregation is like a firmly packed snowball. Those on the inside, that lead the congregation, should attract others to attach to them. As time moved on, the snowball should grow. If it grows and joins with others, through attraction attachment, then we may build a snowman – the one new [snow]man. ?
“Would you like to build a snowman?” In our hyper independent world, too many Messianic are just being flakey. They are not seeing where their individual beauty is purposed for connection. Being faithful to join others for the Sabbath and feast days should create the bonds that hold the whole together. Those in leadership need to pay attention to those on the outside and draw them into the body.
“that wound is shared blood” Is he referring to the blood of Christ?
You are welcome to interpret the phrase as you wish. The ambiguity is purposeful.
I think we all are hurt, broken, wounded, and bleeding. It is part of the methamophosis, like a chrysalis in a cocoon struggling to get free from doctrines, dogmas and traditions of man, and I love it !
Having spent most of my life deeply committed to “the church” because of a gift of faith and a heart of obedience today’s word was profoundly helpful and very timely. Yeshua and Abba carefully walked me out of “the church” and into their Kingdom. Yet I still struggle with my profound heart for service and relationship. It is his heart but how does one invest it properly?
The path is of course Torah. It was particularly the Sabbath that set me free from the false expectations and obligations piled on me by the keepers of the Church structural system. My life has been ordered by rest, not striving after the wind.
“My rest is a weapon, against the oppression of man’s obsession to control things”. Josh Garrels
But the fellowship with the Ekleisia, the communion of saints, remains critical to my heart, growth and life. It can be so confusing and hard to discern where to invest ones time; repairing the world, serving the needy, evangelizing the lost, gathering for worship and praise?
Having been so indoctrinated and formed by the self-preserving nature of institutionalized spiritual relationships, it still takes time to see the depths of the confusion and fabric of lies and falsehoods about them.
Skip pitched a good ball but it was hit out of the park for me with these words. “Live your life! When they are ready for the answer, they will ASK the question”. It is so freeing to know and trust that Yeshua has it in order and is working Abba’s plans for all of man kind Jew and Gentile.
Ahh to breath the free air, to live OUR LIVES trusting and not obligated to save or evangelize the world for the sake of the Greco / Roman god Jesus. Its so much work be because it is not the substance of real life, it is a cancer…
To live our lives in Torah, as informed and directed by the Spirit of Messiah resident within all who receive it, is our life and that to the full. That is of course why Messiah came. May He be clearly revealed and His way uncovered!
Mark, I hear so much in what you are saying! I will share out of my heart and stand to be corrected or given more wisdom by any of our community members. I try to be always learning.
I don’t know how old you are Mark, (not asking!), but the earlier the process of leaving ‘church’ begins, the better. However, whenever it comes, it has to come out of deep conviction, not reaction. The conviction has to be balanced with a desire for a truthful heart-walk with the real Yeshua, because the twists and turns encountered in the search for truth can be potentially discouraging even destructive.
‘Church’ offers a false comfort for it does not ‘push’ one on to Yeshua but keeps it’s members church-agenda bound and controlled (not without a fair amount of consent). But, imho, not even community can carry one, only Yeshua; it is a narrow road! So Yeshua has to be known even as the Apostles did, even as Paul did… and our Lord knows HOW to be individual with each one of us.
IMO, many persons in Scripture never had community – the Patriarchs, Yosef, the Prophets…to name a few, Shaul, John on Patmos…but perhaps Yeshua was Himself the most outstanding example! They ‘began’ in ‘community’ but was led to just walk in obedience. Sometimes the community was unable to ‘bless/agree with’ a persons walk. These learnt to know the Voice and learnt to simply obey, for they know for themselves that the Father is altogether trustworthy; invariably He also brings the needed outer affirmation.
Real community has it’s members bonded in the Spirit, a rare occurrence I believe. The price is too high. Serving is not the same as bonding, and one can serve without having bonding.
What could the disciples do for Yeshua? Nothing. Yet His face was set like a flint from the word go! Yes, because of His relationship with His Father, and this is what He offers us! Eventually the disciples got it. Sure, not until AFTER the resurrection but all the training and teaching went on before. After the resurrection they heard everything with new ears as Yeshua spent time with them. Eventually, we will get it too if we allow the resurrected Yeshua to do what only He does best – disciple us.
‘Church’ gives a start but then gets in the way, church is mostly impersonal apart from having it’s own agenda; Torah is good but not enough. Along the way (and in church) there can be bonding and life-giving relationships, but one must follow his heart in order to be of service to the Father. Genuine relationships never die, other relationships may be just for a season…but every disciple must walk his walk if he wants to hear ‘well done’.
Over time and as we cooperate, the Holy Spirit prepares each vessel for the purpose the Father has determined and it begin with taking our need for transformation (to be like Yeshua, who learnt obedience through suffering), serious. It is painful initially because of our flesh, but the freedom and joy is immeasurable!
The father choses the means to test us and it consist in the ordinary things of life; we determine our response – to honor or not honor the Father. For the Hebrew there is no secular and spiritual life. All of life is holy and is to be lived for Yah’s glory. This ‘truth’ played a great part in many changes in my own life. No dualism, just one wholesome life to be lived.
So again, imho, you are on the right track. It takes time to be weaned from ‘church’, but the reach MUST BE for the real stuff, and that is inseparable from intimacy with Yeshua. We must see how He was with His disciples and desire the same attentive closeness. He will surprise us.
Arnella, you summarize our lives perfectly. For fourty years our RCC spiritual life was like a metronome. Perfectly predictable tick by tick but going nowhere. Suddenly after a dramatic change in employment and location this predictable life was turned upside down with no help from us and we began to really live life both in the church and in the secular world of service clubs, charities and not-for-profit organizations.
Eventually our church lives meant less and the rest meant more to us until ultimately the Sunday morning routine finally became obsolete. For the past 7 years we have learned to live “within our selves” instead of the other way around, not that we have become recluses, it is just that we see things differently now. At 77 (last week for me) and with 50 years of marriage behind us (on Friday this week) we agree with your statements such as “Church gives a start but then gets in the way” …”The father choses the means to test us and it consists in the ordinary things of life; we determine our response” …. “It takes time to be weaned from ‘church’, but the reach MUST BE for the real stuff, and that is inseparable from intimacy with Yeshua”, but especially your conclusion, “He will surprise us.”
He most certainly has! Especially this past year.
Thanks for your input. Blessings and shalom.
Congrats on your anniversary! What a blessed couple you are, and, I might add, so fun for people to be around! The blessing is real. Are you going to Sarasota?
No, unfortunately for us the schedule does not work.
Hi Penny and George,
You are welcome. It seems that after 77 years here (Penny? and with George… both of you heading for the century mark I guess), I must have said something right for you to resonate with my thoughts! I’m blessed that you are blessed.
Congrats on your 50th! It’s good batting (as in cricket) ? May you be favored with many more years together.
Shalom to you too!
Wow Arnella! You write very well. Your statement about church giving a start but then getting in the way being concerned with its own agenda is profound to me. I had not put it in those words but have struggled to explain that to folks along the way. Most find comfort for a time in the familiar routines of church-not to many surprises therein.
So many thoughts that you wrote just resonate within me today!
There is a lot of wisdom that folks share here and much of it gives me things to think on. It is a comfort to me to know that others out there celebrate/struggle with many of the same things I come across in my own journey of life!
Blessings to you and yours.
Thank you Dawn.
Until the Holocaust happened and Israel became a nation again, the true character of ‘Church’ could not be manifested. The best way to know counterfeit money is to know real money. In our case, the ‘real dude’, Israel, has turned up!
Well, ‘Church’ taught for centuries that the Holy One was done with the Jews! Come to think of it, that institution was accusing the God of Israel of unfaithfulness! It was also suggested that ‘Church’ was the ‘New Israel’ thereby accusing’ Him of fickelness!!! Do we suppose He will not answer to such defamation of His character?!!
Larry Hurtado’s review of the new Paula Fredriksen book seems appropriate to reference here, as she touches tangentially on some of the material in this blog post, with Hurtado offering both agreement and dissension:
larryhurtado dot wordpress dot com/2018/12/04/when-christians-were-jews-paula-fredriksen-on-the-first-generation/
Are most people here “Messianic”?
They would like to think so I believe