Scripture Daily

Context No. 1542 of 4322 · Hebrews

Context · Reflection

Hebrews 10:24-31: in context

24Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, 25not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. 26For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, 27but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries. 28A man who disregards Moses’ law dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses. 29How much worse punishment do you think he will be judged worthy of who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him who said, “Vengeance belongs to me. I will repay,” says the Lord. Again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

The writer of Hebrews urges his readers not to drift, and gives a means: let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as some have made a habit of doing, but encouraging one another, all the more as we see the Day approaching. He follows with a stern warning about deliberately turning from the truth after having known it, and the fearful judgment that awaits, ending: it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

The practical counsel worth taking is at the start: do not neglect to meet together, but stir one another up to love and good works, encouraging one another. The writer names a danger, that some had made a habit of drifting away from the gathering of believers, and against it he sets the value of Christian community. We need one another to persevere in the faith. Faith is not a solitary undertaking, sustained alone; we are meant to gather, to encourage one another, to spur each other on toward love and good works, and to do so all the more as difficulties increase. There is a reason the writer treats the neglect of meeting together as a real danger: the believer who isolates, who drifts from the community, loses the encouragement and the mutual stirring-up that help us keep going. We grow cold alone; we are kept warm together. There is a searching word in this for a time when many are tempted to a private, isolated faith, to keep God at the edge of a busy life without the gathering and encouraging of other believers. The writer says we need the assembly, not as an optional extra but as a means of perseverance; we stir one another up to love and good works, and without that mutual encouragement, we drift. To keep our faith alive over the long haul, we need one another, the gathering, the encouraging, the spurring-on. Do not neglect to meet together; it is one of the ways God keeps us from drifting away.

Have I drifted from the gathering and encouragement of other believers toward a private, isolated faith, and do I recognize that I need the community, the mutual stirring-up to love and good works, to persevere, so that neglecting to meet together is a real danger and not a small thing?

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