Reasons Why God Wants us to Meet Regularly with Other Christians

Richard Hollerman

We know that some of you may wonder why we meet with the saints and what this means. Probably some of you may think that this is a perfunctory experience or something that is done to please God or make Him indebted to us. If you have a background in “churchianity,” it may be something that you traditionally do and you think that this is to be done to “carry on the tradition.” Or your family has had a habit of “going to church” and you think that this is something that should be continued. Or it may be that you have read such passages as Hebrews 10:25 and this passage has been so repeated in your mind that it is now something that you absolutely must do in order to feel good about life and God’s will. Is this true? Are we missing something here?

We do think that this is something that people misconceive and fail to grasp the real reason for the Biblical command to assemble (Hebrews 10:25; 3:13).  We read something that should help with our discussion: “According to a 2021 survey, 31 percent of Americans never attend church or synagogue, compared to 22 percent of Americans who attend every week.” (https://www.statista.com/statistics/245491/church-attendance-of-americans). The question is: Why do these 22 percent of the public want to “go to church” each week?

We know that this would include all sorts of people, include heretics, false teachers, denominationalists, cultists, and many others. Most, of course, would be simply those involved in false religion of various kinds, and most are part of churchianity (as I call it). There would be many religionists who “go to church” for various reasons. It may be that nearly one in four or one in five Americans meet in this way (22% to be precise) but why?

We know that there are different answers. A Catholic may meet regularly as well as an Orthodox member, or an Episcopalian, or a Methodist. We may also find that a Lutheran, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, or a Pentecostal may weekly meet. But why is it that God wants us to meet with the saints—if at all possible?

We realize that for various reasons, we may not be able to do this. You may be sick, or injured, or too old, or too young, or traveling, or not be near other saints. But of the 22% who do claim to meet regularly, what about the one or two percent of people who do want to meet? (The others don’t profess salvation.)

Granted, most of those religionists who meet are false in one way or another. Of the 3,000 groups who claim to be Christians in American, what about them? (Some 30,000 churches worldwide profess to be “Christians” even though most of them surely are not genuine!) Then too there are many in other parts of the world, such as Africa and Asia who do meet regularly. What about them?

God wants us to meet with other faithful Christians for various reasons, among which may be the following:

  1. We are to “stimulate one another to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). When we are with other saints, we are better able to do this “stimulation” and be urged to have a greater love for God and others, as well as participate in various “good deeds.”
  1. We must not “forsake” the assembling of other Christians, but rather must “encourage” each other in whatever ways are appropriate (Hebrew 10:25).
  1. We are to “encourage” other believers, not just once a week, but “day after day” for otherwise we may be “hardened” by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13). This regular meeting with others (monthly, weekly, and daily) must serve to keep us from the deceit and practice of evil of all kinds.
  1. One prime reason for our assembling is found in Acts 2:42. This passage is declarative and not imperative. Thus, we see that the early believers were devoting themselves to the “teaching” of the apostles, “fellowship” or joint participation with other Christians, the “breaking of bread” or the Lord’s supper, and to “prayer.” Of course, other matters were singing (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).
  1. These early Christians were deeply involved in fellowship and association with others (Acts 2:43-47). Thus, they must have loved and served each other in outgoing ways. In other words, they shared with each other (verses 44, 45).
  1. They were involved in this daily fellowship, eating with each other, and had “gladness and sincerity of heart” in their contact with other believers (Acts 2:46).
  1. If we were to study such a passage as Romans 12:9-21 we would see that these Christians were not involved in “Churchianity” as so many are today, but were genuinely interested in the welfare of each other (or they should have been).
  1. Other passages in Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Peter, 1 John, and elsewhere help to supplement our view of either what the early believers were to be or what they actually were.

We therefore, must not conclude that we are to meet together as an act of “works righteousness” or works salvation or churchianity (Ephesians 2:8-10), but God wants us to have this genuine concern, love, and fellowship with others. And here we don’t refer to those who merely profess to be Christians, but those who actually are saved.

We know that there are millions who profess to be followers of Christ, who have been externally “baptized,” or have their names on a church role, but they may not be truly saved. Also, at least half or perhaps more (such as 60, or 70 percent) of professing Christians have merely been baptized as infants—thus they definitely are not saved (that is, they have never repented of their sins and self-life and been immersed into Christ, Acts 2:38-39, etc.).

God wants those who belong to Christ, as truly repentant, faithful, confessing, and baptized believers, to find sweet fulfillment in the assembly with each other. We find in the body of Christ or the ekklesia the kind of fellowship that God wants. We hope that you will carefully read over the Biblical passages that we have referred to above and this will help us to understand more fully the reasons, the motivations, and the directives of meeting with other saints!

As we stated at the beginning, there are various “providential” reasons why a certain believer may not be able to meet with other Christians. We think of the following, but you may want to add to these:

  1. There are no other true Christians nearby.
  2. Because of circumstances one cannot move to another area.
  3. Nearby churches may not be hospitable.
  4. Nearby churches may be overcome by a heretical position.
  5. The group may be greatly removed from biblical names.

These are some of the reasons why a true Christian may not be able to gather with other saints.  But apart from this, we know that there are genuine reasons why believer may not be able to meet with others. May God bless us to do what we can do in this regard.