Christian Don’t Stop Meeting as a Community
1Sam 7:7-17
Synopsis 1Sam 7:7-17 8/24/2018
With the return of the ark of the Covenant, the Israelites once again began to seek the Lord. At Samuel’s direction, they gathered as one nation at Mizpah and rededicated themselves to the Lord. This was the beginning of Samuel’s formal ministry as Judge over Israel.
The gathering of the nation was an affront to the Philistines. So the Philistine rulers reacted to Israel’s national gathering by sending an army to confront them. However, the Lord intervened with thunder and threw the Philistine army into confusion. Disoriented and trapped in a foreign land, the Philistines were defeated by the Israelites.
During the battle, Samuel prayed and sacrificed to the Lord. Samuel’s reputation was cemented. He judged Israel from that day forward. He judged by making an annual circuit around the countryside of Israel. And, he also judged from his home at Ramah.
The Coming Together
Samuel called the people together knowing that this would most likely provoke the Philistine rulers. But he weighed the possibility of a Philistine invasion against the necessity of all the tribes coming to see themselves as one nation.
His purpose was to reconstitute the people’s awareness that they were one nation under the protection and authority of the one, true God.
Christian Don’t Stop Meeting as a Community
They say the best way to keep a group of people from uniting is to keep them from meeting. Any mass meeting by a subjugated people is a natural threat to their rulers. Rulers will work to prevent meetings. And, that’s a hardship. But, it’s also a validation of the necessity of physical community.
The forces of evil work to isolate the individual. That’s how I remain powerless and vulnerable and lonely. Preventing me from meeting – or keeping me from wanting to meet – in an open and honest community is the #1 best way to keep me powerless.
In faith, in life, in all things – your possibility and potential is inseparable from the context of your Christian community.
So, Christian don’t stop meeting in community.
“We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near” Heb 10:25
