As Is The Manner Of Some

AS IS THE MANNER OF SOME

And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.  Hebrews 10:24-25

Have we heard this verse so much that we shrug it off as just another way to make people feel bad when they don’t go to church?  Do we really understand the implication of those words?  Have you ever wondered who the “some” were in those verses?  Certainly it wasn’t the sick, or  those who beyond their control were hindered from assembling.  The inference is clearly directed toward those who chose not to assemble when they could have been there.

Christians have been assembling together since the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus. Acts 2:41-47.  But there have always been those who neglected assembling as we see in Hebrews 10:24-25.

Pliny, a secular writer in about 112 A.D., made a report to the emperor Trajan in which he bore witness to certain vital aspects of Christianity.  Of special interest was the witness he bore to the tenacity maintained by the Christians in regard to their assemblies.  They attended the regular worship services in spite of every hindrance.  Legal meetings on a publicly  recognized day of rest, as in these days, were impossible.  Christians met in the darkness of pre-dawn assemblies;  and no impediment whatever was allowed to interfere.  He went on to report that their services were nothing of scandalous or improper kind, that they partook of a meal of the most harmless and ordinary variety, that sang a hymn to Christ as God, and that they bound themselves with a promise not to commit fornication or theft or any other crime.  This witness of Pliny reaches back to within a very few years of the apostles themselves and is a valuable independent testimony bearing upon the faith.

Those of Pliny’s day were under persecution for their faith.  Their attendance at such assemblies could have resulted in imprisonment or even death.  Have we become so busy that we have no time to assemble with the church?