Paul Davison

One of the major problems facing Christian churches is our vagueness and uncertainty about why we meet together.

Normally, when a group of people meets, the reasons for doing so determine the group’s nature and functions.

• People gather in a movie theatre to watch a movie
• Or at a bus stop to catch a bus
• Or on a rugby field to kill each other

Sometimes the corporate nature of the event is incidental to its function: such as movie-watching. And sometimes the corporate nature is essential, such as playing rugby.

So we need to ask ourselves this question: what type of gathering is church?

We can do many church activities like prayer, learning and reading the Bible – just as well, if not better, alone. The reason for Christians gathering together isn’t obvious until we understand the nature of the God who gathers us.

The God Who Gathers 

The Bible’s teaching about why believers meet together is rooted deeply within the nature of God’s activity in the world. To understand God’s gathering nature I want us to go on a quick road-trip through the Bible. We’ll just be touching on some of the highlights to see the nature of God. And we’ll begin with the formation of the nation Israel. The nation of Israel knew God as a “gatherer”.

The foundational event of the exodus is remembered as the time that God brought the nation of Israel from Egypt and gathered them at Mt. Sinai on the “day of the assembly”, to hear his words of instruction.

Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, ‘This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.
(Exodus 19:3-6)

And the people are reminded of that great event before they go into the Promised Land.

Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” (Deuteronomy 4:10)

As the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land they renew their covenant, their pledge to the Lord to be faithful. And the people are promised the blessings that come from obedience and the curses that will come from disobedience. And chief among the blessings is being gathered together as one people by the Lord.

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. (Deuteronomy 30:1-4)

The LORD said, “It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law. Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their fathers taught them.” … Therefore, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “See, I will make this people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water. I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have destroyed them.” (Jeremiah 9:13-16)

The Lord gathered them to himself through the exodus, he sustained them in the land – but when they disobey his judgement is to scatter the people back into the foreign nations he had gathered them from.

The God Who Gathers Through Jesus 

Now despite the disobedience of Israel as a nation (that led the Lord to judge them through exile – where they were physically relocated to other lands) - God had not finished with his people. In order that the people of God could again be gathered together, the Lord Jesus came. Jesus’ died “… for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.” (John 11:52). Jesus said about himself: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30)

And we find worked out in the New Testament the major theme of the unity which the gospel brings to all believers, drawing them together under Christ. We find that the images of the church are corporate ones: the body, the building, the family, a people. And then the concluding image in the Bible from the book of Revelation is of “a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9-10)

Throughout the Bible God’s declared intention and goal is to gather together a people. He is a gathering God – therefore to gather together with Christians is to be paddling in the direction that God is pushing – going with the flow, going with the grain. He is a farmer who herds his people together – a shepherd who forms a flock.

So that if I ask: What is God’s will for me? It is to be grouped together with other believers. The primary way that God relates to me is through the group, through his gathered people, through his church.

The Bible is a collection of books essentially written to communities of God’s people in the Old Testament and churches of God’s people in the New Testament. If you only read the Bible privately, then you will not be in the right place to hear God’s word. You’ll privatise its message and so misunderstand it.

We live in a culture focussed on the individual. And the temptation is to just have a Christianity individualized to me. I add Christianity to my life – rather than my life is added to Christ’s cause – Christ’s people.

So if I want to hear God’s voice clearest – I will do that as a part of the group that he has formed and the group he addresses most directly: his church. Because God’s basic unit is the church, not the individual. The story of the Bible is that of God making, shaping and refining his people. The lives of individuals like Abraham, David and Isaiah, the disciples, and Paul all have their meaning because they are part of God’s continuous community.

To say, “I don’t need church, I don’t need other Christians” cuts across the grain of God’s purposes and plans. In fact to isolate yourself from God’s people is actually a sign of God’s judgement. It’s is a punishment in the Bible that people are scattered and separated, dispersed and disassociated from each other. To impose that penalty on yourself and call it a good thing – is misguided folly.

• What Does It Mean To Gather
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