The Crucible of Sanctification · Spiritual Maturity
Article 5 of 6
No Christian Alone
The New Testament has no category for the solitary believer. Why that is so, what the local church is actually for — and an honest reckoning with the reasons people leave.
8 min read · 6 passages · 5 sections
In this article · 5 sections
A great many serious Christians are reading alone. Some are isolated by geography or illness. Some have been wounded in a congregation and cannot yet face another. Some looked for a church that handled Scripture carefully and did not find one, and settled for books and recordings instead. Their reasons are usually better than the reasons given for dismissing them.
And yet the New Testament has no word for such a person. Not a rebuke for them — no category at all. Every letter is written to an assembly or to someone leading one; every instruction about growth assumes other people are in the room. This article is written on the assumption that the reader may be in that position, and that the honest thing is to show what Scripture says rather than to scold.
The command and its reason
(KJV)
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together — and note that the command in verse 24 comes first: to consider one another.
The Exegetical Nexus
ἐπισυναγωγή (episunagōgē) · G1997
A gathering together, with a prefix that intensifies: not merely meeting but being gathered to a point. The only other use in the New Testament is of our gathering together unto Christ at His coming (). The word for the weekly assembly and the word for the final one are the same, which tells you what the writer thinks Sunday is: a rehearsal, and a small instalment of the thing itself.
More on ἐπισυναγωγή · G1997 →The reason given is worth noticing, because it is not the one usually offered. The writer does not say attend because you need teaching, or because you owe God an hour. He says consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. The assembly exists so that Christians can act upon each other. You cannot provoke anyone from your armchair, and — more to the point — nobody can provoke you.
The reason to be in a congregation is not mainly what you will get. It is that there are people who will not get what they need unless you are there.
What the first church actually did
(KJV)
Four things, and the definite articles matter: the apostles' doctrine, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, the prayers.
Three of the four are impossible alone. A man can read doctrine by himself; he cannot have fellowship with himself, cannot break bread with himself, and the prayers here are corporate. Whatever the private Christian life is, Luke's summary of the earliest one is describing something else.
Why a book cannot do it
This is the point at which the self-taught reader has a genuine objection: I am being fed. My study is more careful than most of the preaching I have heard. That may well be true, and Paul still says it is insufficient — for a reason that has nothing to do with the quality of the teaching.
(KJV)
The gifts are given for the perfecting of the saints — and the growth described is the growth of a body, fitly joined together, every joint supplying.
Read that carefully and the argument is structural. Paul does not say Christians grow better in company; he says the growth in view is the growth of a body, and a body part in isolation does not grow — it dies. The maturity described is corporate by definition. There is no private edition of it.
(KJV)
The body is one, and hath many members. Paul spends the chapter refusing both errors: the member who thinks he is unnecessary, and the member who thinks others are.
And there are commands in the New Testament you simply cannot obey alone. Bear one another's burdens (). Confess your faults one to another (). Submit yourselves one to another (). Be kindly affectioned one to another (). A Christian by himself is not merely lonely; he is disobedient in a whole category of things, however excellent his doctrine.
The common misreading
I left because the teaching was shallow, or because I was hurt, or because what I saw did not look like the New Testament at all. Am I supposed to pretend that was nothing?
No. Scripture takes bad shepherding seriously enough to warn about it repeatedly, and a man who has been used or misled by a leader is not being oversensitive. But notice what the New Testament does with the problem: it never once recommends withdrawal as the remedy. It commands elders to feed the flock rather than fleece it (), tells congregations to test what they hear (), and expects that correction happens inside the assembly. The answer to a bad church is a better church, which will still be an imperfect one. And be honest about the alternative: alone, you will be corrected by nobody, which suits our pride far more than we admit. The heart that says no congregation is faithful enough for me is not always wrong, and is almost never only right.
What to look for, and what to bear with
If a congregation is to be joined, some things are non-negotiable and a great many are not. Non-negotiable: that Scripture is opened and explained rather than used as a springboard; that Christ crucified and risen is the centre and not an accessory; that the leaders are accountable to somebody and can be questioned; that the gospel preached is the one Paul preached rather than a promise of advantage.
(KJV)
Feed the flock, taking the oversight, not for filthy lucre, neither as being lords over God's heritage. Peter names the three ways eldership goes wrong: reluctance, greed, and domination.
Negotiable, and where much energy is wasted: the style of the music, the hour of the meeting, the temperament of the preacher, the building, and a hundred matters of preference that we dignify with the language of conviction. A church you can respect is worth more than a church you would design.
(KJV)
They watch for your souls, as they that must give account. Submission is asked for, and so is a reason for it — these men will answer for you.
The Altar
If you are outside a congregation, the step is not to resolve in principle to find one. It is to go somewhere this Sunday, and to go a second time, because nothing can be judged from one visit and the first is always the strangest.
If you are inside one and functionally invisible — arriving late, leaving early, known by nobody — then the command about considering one another has not begun to touch you yet, and it will not until somebody in that room can tell when you are struggling.
And if you have been out for a long time, longer than you meant, take the plainest reading of Hebrews and act on it before you have finished satisfying every objection. The assembly is not a reward for having resolved your questions. It is, in part, where they get resolved.
Scriptures cited
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All quotations are from the King James Version.