Episode 32 - Church Attendance and Church Discipline

What does it mean to attend a church? Do you go to a place of worship with others or do you choose to skip the "organized" church to worship on your own? And what about church discipline? Should the church be allowed to say who is in and who is out? In this episode we will talk about all these topics and more.

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Transcript

After experiencing two years of pandemic restrictions and temporary Church closures worldwide we have seen a change in habitual attendance as well as a decline in spiritual attentiveness.

For most of us whose churches were closed during the last two years, there was a temptation to church hop virtually, just to see what was available. This has had a mixed effect on our local churches with some members challenging what is being taught to outright refusing to return to church. I'm not saying that the pandemic caused the decline in attendance and participation; all it did was give people an excuse to flip their hearts from serving God to serving themselves.

So that is what we will be addressing in today's episode.

Points on attendance

Where does the practice of church attendance come from? To begin with, we need to look at the design of the tabernacle, the original "tent of meeting," and realize that the idea of attendance was not an option. Let me explain; when we attend any event, we are basically a body in a seat, we are not expected to interact or participate, and our attendance is not always an act of willingness. However, if we see ourselves as being at a place of meeting two things are true, we intend to be where we are, and we expect others will be there for the same reason.

So — could we argue that in the days of the tent of meeting (when the Isrealites were wandering in the desert), that attendance was mandatory? When we read through the books of Moses, the language seems to suggest that the whole congregation, or all the Isrealites, would spend time meeting together. The attendance of the priests and elders was mandatory but not that of the people. However, on some occasions, they would be called together to receive revelation, instruction, discipline, or feasting.

This model of meeting remained tied to the portable tabernacle until Solomon built the permanent temple in Jerusalem. After the Babylonian exile, there is evidence to suggest that attendance was considered optional. As the Hebrew people became more scattered, their ability to make weekly, monthly, or yearly journeys to Jerusalem diminished. So, local synagogues were put in place to continue provision for revelation, instruction, discipline, or feasting by the priests over the people. In fact, the word synagogue means "house of assembly."

When we talk about the tabernacle, we talk about the residence, or dwelling place, of God. So, how we approach church attendance can be likened to our understanding of heaven. If we don't want to be there we won't be forced to attend. But listen how David addresses the meeting of God's people in …Psalm 36:8, "LORD, I love the dwelling of Your house, and the place where Your glory remains."

Church attendance, or meeting together, is an outward display of our piety. Matthew Henry says that David is speaking about personal devotion in this verse. Often David talks about his delight in meeting with the Lord. He desires to be in God's presence. Is that the same reason we go to church?

David isn't silent on this point. Consider these verses:

Psalm 84:1 - How lovely is your dwelling place
Psalm 84:2 - My soul yearns for the courtyard of the Lord
Psalm 84:4 - Blessed are those who dwell in Your house
Psalm 84:10 - A day in your courtyard is better than a thousand elsewhere
Psalm 27:4 - One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.

The Benson Commentary says, "Nothing should be more grievous to us than to be hindered from seeing and serving God in His house."

Is attendance optional or mandatory?

In our book "Six Good Questions" I talk about the notion of free will as opposed to predestination. Everything is optional, but why would you ever exercise that option? There is an effect for every cause, a consequence for every decision.

If you read through the Old Testament and study the ancient cult practices of the Isrealites, you will find that mandatory attendance at the tabernacle, temple, or synagogue was not required. But we should — like David — want to be in the presence of God. Listen — meeting together is not strictly a Sunday morning tradition; meeting has always been meant to be something available to us at any time.

But let's not give too much rope to those who exclaim that they don't need a building, or a set of rules; those who say, "I can meet God in nature or in a quiet room at home. Remember, the Bible says God is with us when two or three are gathered."  Such a statement displays a clear misunderstanding of what Jesus said in Matthew 18:19-20, and bypasses the basic point of what is being discussed here. Maybe they should go to church and actually listen to some sound teaching. 

Yes, you are right if you say, the church is not a building, it is its people, BUT - worship is designed to be done in community, corporately, and structured. That's not my opinion but direct instruction, which we read all throughout Old and New Testament texts. 

Tony Evans wrote: "People say, “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian,” and they are right. Salvation is through faith alone in Christ alone. You also don’t have to go home to be married — but stay away long enough, and your relationship will be affected."

Consider these Biblical texts:

Between God and Moses, 
Exodus 15:13, 17, "In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established.
Deuteronomy 6:13-14, "Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you;" 
Corporate worship may have only happened during the feasts, but devotion was expected around the clock

From Christ to the disciples, 
Matthew 18:20, "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." Probably the most used verse, it does say we should meet together.
Mark 2:27, "Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Man was created first, and then the Sabbath.
Matthew Henry says, "The sabbath is a sacred and Divine institution; a privilege and benefit, not a task and drudgery. God never designed it to be a burden to us, therefore we must not make it so to ourselves."

And outlined in the Gospels.
Hebrews 10:24-25, "let’s consider how to encourage one another in love and good deeds, not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people," Meeting is encouraged to build up the church.
1 Corinthians 14:26, "When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. All things are to be done for edification." New covenant worship assumes that we meet together, that we bring our gifts to edify fellow believers.
Romans 12:1, "present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship."

In Mark 10:9 we read, "What God has joined together let no man not separate." Often this verse is used in the context of a marriage, but, Christian living is inseparably connected with Christian believing. It is just like a marriage. Possibly the error of our traditions was to loosen our practical faith from actual practice; supposing that an orthodox creed was sufficient. So our spiritual service of worship is to present ourselves to God. You cannot claim to be married if you refuse to be present. 

Ephesians 4:15-16 says we are to grow up in all aspects, "into Him who is the head, that is, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Work together toward maturity in Christ, toward the growth of the body.

Weekly church attendance is in no sense “required” for believers, there are no verses that say that explicitly, but someone who belongs to Christ should have a desire to worship God, receive His Word, and fellowship with other believers.

Did Jesus attend church (synagogue)

All four Gospels record Jesus regularly attending synagogue. Mark 1:21-28 talks about Jesus' teaching and healing in the synagogue. Luke 4:16-37 tells us that He attended and taught regularly in the synagogue "as was His custom."

So it seems that Jesus intentionally met at the synagogue and taught the disciples to practice this as well.

What did attendance look like in:

Early church:
Paul saw the synagogue format as one that worked to bring believers together for organized corporate worship.
Justin Martyr said, “We hold our common assembly on the day of the sun, because It is the first day, on which God put to flight the darkness and chaos and made the world, and on the same day Jesus Christ our savior rose from the dead…”
Augustine said, “He cannot have God for his father who does not have the church for his mother.” 

Catholic theology:
Benedict 16, puts it in these terms [for early Christians] “the Sunday Eucharist was not a commandment, but an inner necessity. Without him who sustains our lives, life itself is empty. To do without or to betray this focus would deprive life of its very foundation, would take away its inner dignity and beauty”

Reformation theology:
Martin Luther wrote, “To gather with God’s people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.” 

Points on discipline 

I'll move from this topic to the second one on today's podcast. Discipline in the church. All children hate discipline and correction, but as children of God we have a responsibility to both accept and exact discipline when applicable. But what are the guidelines we are expected to follow?

Romans 16:17 says, "Troublemakers and those who sow discord. Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them."

I once was a member of a rock band who recorded an album and did some touring but never got famous. Our lead singer was someone who fit into this category. He had been raised in a very religious family, and he knew his Bible better than I did, but he would twist and distort Scripture to make his lifestyle sound holy. 

There are many people in our churches who do the same thing. I can't even begin to tell you how often I am told that Christians should love everyone. But they don't have the first clue as to the implications of what they're saying. Jesus is love. He exemplified love when He was on earth, and He still identified people's sins, told them to stop sinning, and acted on those who refused to listen. And yet He healed the sick, enjoyed meals with prostitutes and swindlers, employed the services of liars and thieves, and died for you.

When those who cause dissension and hinder the teaching of truth begin to attack the church, they often do it from right beside us on the pew or seats in our churches. They are friends and family whose hearts are intent on sin and not forgiveness or love. Scripture tells us to turn away from them. 

What does this mean? The Greek word used here for turn away 

is ekklinō. It implies an attitude of deviation. This means we avoid them, go out of their way, decline interaction with them, or we shun them. I will talk more about the notion of shunning later, but I want you to see the response we are expected to have with these people.

1 Thessalonians 5:14 reads, "The unruly and disorderly. We urge you, brothers and sisters, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone."

Environmentalists, pro-choice, social justice warriors, BLM protestors, and sexually immoral people have being unruly and disorderly all figured out. Being unruly in Greek society was used to describe those who did not show up for work, acted disorderly, stepped out of rank (often so of soldiers), or participated in irregular, inordinate, and immoderate pleasures which deviated from the prescribed order or rule.

Sara Cain wrote an article for Crisis Magazine in which she addressed one portion of this type of conduct. "Spouses in a real marriage can and must guide each other to God because they love one another enough to care for their eternal souls. A homosexual union, on the other hand, is an embrace of sinful desire in which both parties lead one another away from God—which cannot be love. It cannot be love to say to the other, “Engage in this act with me, at the expense of your soul, for I consider my pleasure to be more important than your salvation.”"

Here, in 1 Thessalonians, we are told to admonish this behavior. This means that we are to ‘urge by warning’, but to do it gently and earnestly. We treat them like brothers and not as enemies. But is this the way we find ourselves acting? Almost never. We must help the weak and be patient with everyone. Discipline is seldom easy, but it helps when you start from the proper perspective.

Why do people act this way? So often we ignore our duty to admonish because we fear offending others. I am often tempted to say, "Hey, be offended; but instead of whining and complaining decide whether you are going to learn and grow, or leave." Today's church ignores its unruly and disorderly members to its own detriment. This is why the church is beginning to collapse in western culture.

We discipline through encouragement, help, and patience which means we cannot ignore the actions of those needing discipline. We must engage them. This is not unlike the discipline of a child; and carries with it a seemingly ceaseless effort to achieve even the smallest advance. But if we fail here the style of discipline changes drastically. 

Those who disobey the great doctrines of the faith.

2 Thessalonians 3:13-14 says, "But as for you, brothers and sisters, do not grow weary of doing good. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person so as not to associate with him, so that he will be put to shame."

So this point builds from the preceding one, it is the next step of discipline. If we chose to ignore the disobedience of the unruly and disorderly on one hand, it will cost us on the other. Two words come to mind: compromise and capitulate. If we compromise on our doctrines we quickly find ourselves capitulating to this barrage of attacks and our faith becomes corrupt.

We see instruction in this verse which is hard to hear; namely our dissociation with those who disobey the clear doctrine of Scripture, and the shame associated with that same person.

Let's not confuse shame with guilt though. Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging, whereas guilt is a sense of remorse and the desire to make amends.

The guilty person wants to repair that action that caused their guilt; but someone experiencing shame will do nothing to fix their situation, they need someone to step into that place with them and help guide them out. This is a pivotal role which we as Christians so often avoid or dismiss.

At the same time our dissociation with that person means we do not keep company with that person. Our brother becomes a stranger to us and as a stranger our relationship to them is changed, our responsibility has changed as well.

Those who deny the great doctrines of the faith.

1 Timothy 6:3-4 says, "If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a sick craving for controversial questions and disputes about words, from which come envy, strife, abusive language, and evil suspicions,"

This is very popular position today. The whole doctrine of truth lies in this verse. "What is truth?" Pilate asked of Jesus; and the answer to that question, as answered in today's culture, makes truth out to be a lie, an emotionally based feeling that has no bearing in truth whatsoever. This is why the church has addressed those who deny doctrine as heretics.

We ought to be very careful about calling someone out as being a heretic, not that heresy does not exist, but we must be careful not to call something a heresy when it’s not, or calling someone a heretic who’s wrong on a secondary or tertiary issue.

Darryl Dash of the Gospel Coalition says that, "To call someone a heretic isn’t the same as arguing that they are wrong. Calling someone a heretic means that they have departed from orthodox Christianity so far that they are undermining the faith and can no longer be considered a brother or sister in Christ."

Furthermore, Michael Haykin of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky writes, “If a person knowingly teaches heresy and as such is a heretic, then, by the way Christianity has defined ‘heresy,’ this person cannot be a Christian.”

This is a very serious accusation and in 1 Timothy 6:11, we read this instruction from Paul, "flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness"

Augustine echoed the words of Paul when he explained what doing theology in the way of Christ means. “This way is first humility, second humility, third humility, and however often you should ask me I would say the same, not because there are no other precepts to be explained, but if humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, and if it is not set before us to look upon, and beside us to lean upon, and behind us to fence us in, pride will wrest from our hand any good deed we do while we are in the very act of taking pleasure in it.”

But this hasn't been the historical reaction of the church. I could spend hours just recounting all the times the church has chosen to address its own heresy by excommunicating, shunning, torturing, and executing those who should have been shown humility, love, and Godly discipline.  Documents such as Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the works of Menno Simons show us the sins of our fathers in how they pursued putting people out of the church. 

But if we must dissociate with our brothers because they have sinned, then we must also treat them like an unbeliever and share the love of God with them. We must share the Gospel message that Christ died for them, to pay the price of their sin.

The church should love people in, and in that sense, our detractors and critics are close to the truth; but the notion of love, as taught by Christ, is an act of near impossibility. And to throw around the veneer of love as flippantly as those who would bring accusations against Christians shows not only their misunderstanding of love, but their gross disregard for it as well. Discipline, in love, can only be done through the grace of God, by those who are humbled before Him,for those who require it.