Household Worship - Part 12 - Beyond Households

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning. We pray that you would bless our continuing study of household worship and that you would grant us unity through our understanding in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so I think sheets have already been passed out. So this lesson is entitled Beyond Households. So thus far we've been talking about households worshiping together as households. All right, but there is the question, well what about when you have multiple households together?

What about when you have visitors? What about when two people are away from their households and they're together? What rules apply to those things? So let's just start off with some basics about church unity.

And I will, let me go ahead and add that this is, I feel like I've learned a lot through studying this just in the past several weeks. And I would have taught this lesson earlier, but I felt there was more to learn and there were other people I wanted to talk to.

It's interesting, I went and talked to Calvin Gallagher at the OPC in Sunnyvale because, you know, he studies the Westminster Standards, right, and the Directory of Family Worship is in the Westminster Standards.

And he's been over at my house when I've done family worship. I've been over at his house when I've done family worship. Thought it'd be good to talk to him. Got a lot of clarity through him, got a lot of clarity through studying.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to going through this. Yeah, some of this has really clarified my understanding in such a way that if any of this sounds different than anything I've said, you know, like a month ago or so, right, you'll know why.

Yeah, I feel like I just have a lot more clarity on these things now. But Ephesians four, Ephesians four is a good foundational passage on unity. And I'm gonna just go ahead and read all, we're gonna talk about all verses one through 16.

I might not read them all at once, but we're gonna talk about all of them. I therefore, prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

Okay, so this sentence, you know, Paul has some pretty long sentences in Ephesians. This one ends with eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. This is the end goal here. There's one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Okay, so one, one, one, one, one, right? We are supposed to be united as one because we are in one Spirit, et cetera. So how is that accomplished? He's gonna answer. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And saying, he ascended, what does it mean? But that he also descended into lower regions the earth. He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.

Okay, so Christ is being described as a conquer who leads a host of captives, right? And the image that you are supposed to be imagining here, it's kind of mixed intentionally, right? Like there's the idea of someone freeing captives, but what you see elsewhere in some passages, like in 2 Corinthians, I believe it's one, it might be two.

But in 2 Corinthians, it talks about, actually, it might be three. It talks about leading us in procession, the idea is like a victory march where you're taking captives from the place that you have conquered.

Okay, so it's kind of a mixed metaphor that's going on here, because what is the gift? And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists. It is the people that he is giving as gifts to people, right?

So yes, he set people free, but he is also, excuse me, also taking captives for the sake of the people to give to them as gifts. So what is he giving? He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood.

So you see, he more explicitly returns to that theme. Now you see why he's talking about Christ having ascended to get gifts, right? He has captured these things. He has given the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, shepherds meaning pastors, teachers.

Why?

To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ until we attain the unity to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So we're not perfectly unified yet, but we are being unified how through these particular gifts that God has given in ministers.

So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. So apart from these measures, we would be tossed around.

We wouldn't be united. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head and to Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

All right, so that it's all knit together. So it starts off with the focus of unity, explains the plan for unity through the gifts of ministers, and then ends with how that unity will build up the whole body, et cetera, until the end.

All right, so unity is a primary goal for the church. Just read that passage. Then this other part of Ephesians 4. Unity is accomplished or bolstered, at least through the gift of ministers, okay? So if this is allowed to be the foundational passage for understanding unity and how God plans to accomplish unity, that leads us to a number of conclusions that are gonna come out through the rest of this study.

Okay, the task of ministry ought not to be self-appointed. Romans 12 .3, for by the grace given to me, I say that everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

All right, and this is talking about teaching. If you read Romans 12, not having a higher opinion of yourself so that you are self-appointing yourself to high positions, but rather recognizing your proper level of giftedness objectively, perhaps through the discernment of others, and operating in accordance with that.

Maybe it'd be worth reading a couple more verses to that. So he says after that, for as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though we are many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

Let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

So in other words, understand what you are equipped for, where you belong in the body, and then do that wholeheartedly, rather than wanting a different station for yourself, the eye wanting to be something else, or the foot wanting to be an eye, et cetera, to use the analogy he makes in 1 Corinthians.

So if all that is the case, and we need to consider those things, we'll bring that back in, but another premise, unity is threatened by false teaching. Okay, that should be obvious, right? Taughts to and fro by different doctrines.

Jude 1, 18 through 19, or I know that's like not as academic to say 1, 18 through 19, but Jude 18 through 19. And the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the spirit.

Okay, false teachers cause divisions. Romans 16, 17, I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught to avoid them.

All right, so what means is God given to give right doctrine that doesn't divide the body? It's ministers, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, et cetera. What has, what threatens that? False teachers, or those who would not soberly recognize their station, right, and put themselves in a place where they should not be, so that they are not operating according to the measure of faith given to them.

False teaching spreads, spreads in the church, so that's something else that you should recognize, right, when false teaching exists, it spreads, yes. Yeah, you recognize that need, you try to do what you can in the station where you are at to fill it, and then if others recognize that you're called to something more officially, then yeah, that is how someone's appointed to it.

Right, like if you realize you have some gifting for teaching, well, yeah, study and use that. Work with, you know, if there are pastors in the church, you would work with them to do more teaching, and then, you know, the body would eventually recognize you'd be more fit, right, for more.

So, yeah, that's different than self-appointment. The fact that there's self-initiative is not the same thing as self-appointing, right? Not even Jesus appointed himself to the office of priest, right, like it says in Hebrews 5, God had to appoint him.

All right, false teaching spreads in the church. Deuteronomy 29, 18 through 19. Beware lest there be among you a man or a woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord to our God to go serve the gods of those nations.

Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit. The one, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.

This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. All right, so what is the, what is the root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit here? What is it? Not quite. Just very literally, what is it?

Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.

One who, yeah.

What's that?

Sarah?

Okay.

I think I heard an answer over here, too.

No?

A person? Yeah, it's a person, right? Okay, so it's not abstract things, it's a person, okay? And it's a secret idolater. Someone who thinks he can, his heart can go away to serve other gods and he's safe.

All right, so that's all important because Hebrews 12, 15 is going to reference that passage and a lot of people think about it very differently. All right, Hebrews 12, 15. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it, many become defiled.

A lot of people imagine that like a root of bitterness that's growing up in your heart, right? So it's something that, okay, this command is for me individually to look over my own heart and make sure that I've got no root of bitterness coming up in it.

But no, it's saying you in the camp make sure that there is no person who is a root of bitterness who is growing up, right? So it's like, it's a communal command to watch other people who may be roots of bitterness, okay?

All right, so false teaching spreads in the church. The root of bitterness springs up, causes trouble, and by it, many become defiled. You know, once you've got some weeds in your garden, they spread all over, right?

That's the idea. So, yeah, to permit that kind of thing is to permit division. All right, false teaching often begins by divorcing religion, sorry, from, yeah, religion from the structures God designed or imitating the structures God designed.

So, right, if he has put shepherds, teachers, evangelists, apostles, prophets, et cetera, for the sake of driving church towards unity, then one of Satan's devices would be to replace that with some other structure that God hasn't commanded to, that would lead people astray.

Judges 17, four through five. So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith and made it into a carved image and a metal image. It was in the house of Micah, and the man Micah had a shrine.

He made an ephod and a household God and ordained one of his sons who became his priest. So we've talked about that passage before, right? Micah appoints a priest just on the basis that he's a Levite, you know, not really anything else, and he thinks God's gonna favor him.

This leads to division in Israel because he's imitating, like, religious structures, but he is, and so there is a, like, this false facade of piety and holiness, right, and righteousness, but it ends up leading the people to division.

Okay, yes, from, yeah, from, yeah,.

From the structures that God designed or imitating the structures God designed. All right, so all this to say, unity is an important thing. God has put structures in place to maintain unity in the church.

Also, the directory of family worship. You know, you look at books today about family worship, and they are primarily centered around just, like, having happy homes, right? It's really interesting, because you read the directory of family worship.

From the title all the way to the final paragraph, it is primarily concerned about church unity. It's not concerned so much about happy homes. I mean, it is concerned about happy homes, but you realize, oh, wow, they really think this is heavily related to unity in the church, period.

Directions of the General Assembly concerning secret and private worship and mutual edification for cherishing piety and maintaining unity and avoiding schism and division. This is the title of the directory of family worship, right?

Back then, when it came in book form, it didn't say directory of family worship. It said, directions of the General Assembly concerning secret and private worship and mutual edification, et cetera, et cetera, right?

They had really long titles back then. And for those who don't know what this is, the Westminster Standards, out of which the Westminster Confession came, there were a lot of other standards in addition to just the confession that our Baptist confession is based on.

There were other documents like the directory of family worship that came out of that assembly. And so that's one thing that I've been coming back to frequently. All right, so that's the title. Now this is the final paragraph.

The drift and scope of all these directions is no other but that upon the one part, the power and practice of godliness among the ministers and members of this kirk, kirk meaning church, according to their several places and vocations may be cherished and advanced and all impiety and mocking of religious exercises suppressed and upon the other part that under the name and pretext of religious exercises, no such meetings or practices be allowed as are apt to breed error, scandal, schism, contempt or misregard of the public ordinances and ministers or neglect of the duties of particular callings or such other evils as are works not of the spirit but of the flesh and are contrary to truth and peace.

So once again, the final paragraph is, what is this to do? It's to avoid breeding error, scandal, schism, contempt, to avoid schism. Okay, so if you've never thought about understanding family worship right to be primarily a task in church unity as opposed to home happiness or discipling children or whatever, like it's very related, so related, it shows up right in the title of the whole document.

Okay, so let's talk about different kinds of ways that family worship might exist beyond just an isolated household and then think about how these concerns from Ephesians four and related passages would apply to that.

Okay, so first of all, Christians should interact with each other often. This is kind of establishing the fact that you would have visitors in your household. Okay, so it's kind of hard to explain why I'm putting all these premises together before reaching a conclusion, but, and the conclusion may not even be obvious from the premises, but yeah, I apologize for that, but hopefully we can get through this together.

Malachi 3, 16 through 17. Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another and the Lord heard them. I won't read the rest of that, but those who feared the Lord spoke with one another, right, this is like a good thing.

If you fear the Lord and you desire holiness, you will interact with other brothers and sisters. Okay, Christians should be hospitable to one another. We're gonna talk about that today in the morning sermon.

Hebrews 13, two. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Christian hospitality and interaction may be accompanied with teaching. Consider Luke 10, 38, 39.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching, okay.

The conclusion from all this, not just these passages right here, but the previous ones too and what we've seen about the nature of unity. Visitors to household may join in family worship, but their visit must be occasioned by something other than worship itself.

Right, so this is a good thing to have, yeah, for the talk that exists to be holy talk, for there to be worship of God when brothers and sisters are gathered together, but if the nature of the occasion is primarily for that thing, then it is basically providing a different structure other than the particular gathered people of God that God has established in the church, okay.

So it is against some of the statements that we've seen here, against the principles that we've seen in scripture and against the statements that we've seen in the directory of family worship. Upon the other part, that unnamed pretext of religious exercise, no such meetings or practices be allowed as they are apt to breed error, scandal, schism, right.

In other words, there shouldn't be other kinds of worship. Like worship may be appropriate if the gathering is happening for some other reason, but if it is happening for the purpose of worship, then that pretext of religious exercise can be a ground for breeding schism, because you're no longer using the means that Christ has appointed for unity, right.

Okay, yes.

Do you have to have more than one reason? I'm saying that, yeah, if you're like, hey, let's share a meal together, you share a meal, you decide to worship God together, that's different than, hey, let's go worship God together apart from the rest of the church.

Okay, those are two different things, right.

Yes.

Yeah, so let me tell you, my thinking has really been changed by reading through these older writers and looking at these principles. I'm at a point where I look at this, I'm like, this is exactly what happens.

Like when I went to Campus Crusade, even though I was more faithful than most in attending church on Sunday, I really, like, it did exactly what this was describing, you know. Yeah, they're apt to breed, dot, dot, dot, disregard of the public ordinances and ministers, right.

Like, I'm getting my religious satisfaction out of this Campus Crusade gathering, you know, I'm talking about my own personal history here, right, and, because we're all worshiping God together, this feels like a good substitute.

So yeah, and then certainly, the things being taught there were not necessarily as sound as the things being taught in my church, right. Because there's not even the structures that God had put in place.

You know, someone to be a leader in Campus Crusade doesn't necessarily have to meet the requirements of 1 Timothy 3, right. Like, the structures God has established in place for the unity of the church, as described in Ephesians 4, don't exist there in those things.

Yeah, yes.

Evangelicals and Catholics together, yeah. Yeah, and different Campus Crusades were more or less liberal. Ours was one of the better ones, from what I understood. But even then, looking back, you know, it still had a tendency towards these errors, right, even if they were teaching everything correctly, right, it still provides someone with a substitute for what they are actually supposed to be getting, right.

All right, let's look at a couple more paragraphs from the Directory of Family Worship that are fairly critical here. At family worship, a special care is to be had that each family keep by themselves, neither requiring, inviting, nor admitting persons from diverse families, unless it be those who are lodged with them, or at meals, or otherwise with them upon some lawful occasion.

All right, so these things are occasional, and by occasional, I don't mean like rare. I mean like they're upon some occasion, right. We're together for a meal. We're together because I'm staying at your home.

You know, we're together because of something else. It's not we're together to worship apart from the rest of the body, okay. All right, and then this next one, paragraph seven. Whatsoever have been the effects and fruits of meetings of person of diverse families in the times of corruption or trouble, in which cases many things are commendable, which otherwise are not tolerable.

In other words, like during times of persecution, you know, you might not be able to assemble as a whole church, et cetera, and maybe you are frequently meeting with others that you're around for the sake of worship, right, without the whole church body.

Well, that could be commendable, and right. Yet, when God has blessed us with peace and purity of the gospel, such meetings of persons of diverse families, except in the cases mentioned in these directions, right, that being lodged with them at meals or otherwise lawful occasions, are to be disapproved as tending to the hindrance to the religious exercise of each family by itself.

Right, so in other words, like it hinders, like if the father needs to correct his child, like if he needs to apply this in a particular way and someone else is present, he can't do that as easily, right.

So that's like one example of how it could hinder if this is something that's happening frequently, or as like a norm. I'll finish the paragraph first, I'll get you. Or to the prejudice of public ministry, right, in other words, oh hey, we're gathering in this little home, which is, this is, you know, I did once hear, I won't name names, but I did once hear someone mention about, you know, the open house that I do on Sunday nights, and you know, because people are joining family worship after the meal, right, that like, oh, this is the real church, you know.

It's like, well, no, like, when we're gathered together, this is the real church here, you know, the public worship, this is not, like I get that this represents something good that you might not find in a lot of other places, this, you are seeing like some echoes of fellowship that are very good here, but that is not the real church, like this is the real church here that we're at now.

To the rending of families of particular congregations and in progress of time, the whole Kirk, besides many offenses, which may come thereby to the hardening of hearts of carnal men and the grief of the godly.

In other words, like if others see the division that's happening in the church, that that has an effect on outsiders as well, and that it hardens their hearts, and it says, see, look, they don't have what's true, right.

Okay, and then grief of the godly, meaning, yeah, obviously those who have to, believers who witness such division, you know, it distresses them.

Yes.

Yeah, I would not, okay, so I would not define this the same as like an academic study, right. Like if you're together to study, like if you're having a seminary study group, and you're all reading a book on a particular topic together or something, I wouldn't call that worship, right.

This is like, this is a religious exercise. You're gathering around the word, you're praying, you're singing. It's not just, oh, we're gonna, we're seminary students who are going to, you know, read this book about theology proper, and then pray before we do, or whatever, right.

So it'd be different in that regard. Yeah, so think about the reasons that people would do this. You know, a lot of times there might be folks who were in times of persecution, or remember former times where they didn't know what to do, and they just met with one other family repeatedly, right.

Like a lot of people have been in that situation, where they were, they realized their own church was corrupt, and they didn't have the true gospel, and so they meet with some other family, and they, you know, they're doing that for a time.

And they have such fond memories of that, that they think that that is more pure than what you have during times of peace, where you have all the offices and everything that Christ has instituted. If you consider, you all know the church movement in San Francisco called We Are Church that Francis Chan runs.

I think this is really like, what's driving that, right, is like, oh, you know, when you've got these little small groups that don't have, I mean, when they first started, they didn't even have deacons, right.

Like, they didn't have a category for it even, and eventually they had deacons. Like they are, like why is it that people find that so attractive to, you know, kind of change the requirements for what a pastor would be, et cetera, so that you have these very small kind of, what's the word, like scrappy, or there's some other word that I'm looking for to just describe like the militant, you know, ah, this is the hard stuff that's enjoyable, et cetera.

The kind of bootstrapping, you know, this is like, yeah, there is something that feels sentimental about it, because it is appropriate in hard times, right. But if you're not in hard times, you should use all the means that God has given and not change the standards of what the offices are, et cetera, so that you can, they don't do this anymore, but when they first started, they had a quota of every two years they would split the church.

So they have two pastors, so every two years they need to create two more pastors in order to split the church and make two more home groups, two more churches, yes. And then, but they're not, if I understand correctly, they're taking, I forget if they take communion apart, but they definitely take communion together, so they consider themselves one church, yet also many churches, which I understand is common in a lot of other church structures like Presbyterianism,.

But it doesn't accord with scripture. Anyway, yes, right.

Well, certainly it's the case that we should have lots of independent churches. I think that's an argument for Baptist ecclesiology. I don't think it's a very good argument for extra scrappy can only meet, are only meeting in the smallest of spaces, et cetera, right.

Okay, consider also, and this is something that always kind of didn't seem quite right to me, but now I'm getting it a bit more. There's a movement in this area about combining faith and work, because a lot of people, you know, they're very high achievers in this area.

They're at jobs that are meaningful in a creative way, not just in a hard work labor way, right, so that they can make important decisions that affect others. It's not just, you know, oh, I work really hard and I produce a good product.

It's like, oh, if I change the way that this internet service works, that could affect people spiritually in a significant way, right. And so there's a lot of talk around how do you combine faith and work?

How do you live that out? And this has led to a lot of people running like workplace worship nights, if you've ever seen this kind of thing. So like at Google, you know, Christians will reserve rooms for worship, like to gather a bunch of people for worship, and they think it's, they feel it's very significant and good that the worship of God is happening here at Google among a bunch of Google employees, right.

And that's like a, but something always felt wrong about it. I mean, it was kind of obviously felt wrong to me because the kind of worship they're doing is not the kind of worship we'd be doing. It's like, I'm all for networking.

I want to meet all you people, but like I don't want to sing Bethel on the Hill song in reckless love. Like that's not really what I want to do here. So that, like I understood there's a little bit of issue there, but then why is it an issue?

It's because if you're doing all this without the oversight of, you know, pastor who's accountable to the body that is doing this, you know, then yeah, you don't have the structures God has put in place for that unity.

Yes.

Well, I would say in part they are, because you know, the head of the household would belong to the church, right. Right, as opposed to this situation where it may not be the case. Secondly, I'd just point out that these are both institutions that God has created, one by natural revelation.

You know, families are just what he has created, right. And fathers have authorities over sons just by nature. And then by special revelation, Christ has created churches. So the second point here is just that these are institutions that God has made and other things are not institutions that God has made.

But then as far as, yeah, families being able to deviate, yes, that is possible, but it's far more restrained in the way that it could happen. And so like part of what these directions are even doing is like answering the question, would this, you know, be divisive for families to worship apart from the rest of the body?

No, it wouldn't. It is good for them to. This is how they avoid, you know, doing it in divisive ways.

All right.

Okay, any questions about that? Because this is like, this is kind of the big point here and we'll just keep applying it to other situations. All right, meetings of multiple households together, very similar stuff.

But just to give you a few examples that this can happen, you know, Exodus 12, four. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb.

What we see in Exodus 12 is a suggestion that multiple households are getting together on occasion if they're poor or small rather for the sake of the Passover. Okay, so like you have households, they were all supposed to eat in isolation, like these households, except in the case where, you know, they needed to gather.

Okay, right, this is not something where you all go to the temple and you celebrate the Passover. You were supposed to celebrate in your home, except in the case where your home is so small that you can't have a whole lamb to yourself, right?

That wouldn't be, that would be way too much. All right, households joined together in religious Thanksgiving for weddings. What is weddings? But joining a family to witness vows. What are vows? According to our confession, they are an act of worship, right?

That's another good example of multiple households getting together for worship. John 2, one through two. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.

Households joined together in religious fasting for funerals. John 11, 17 through 19, just an example of a funeral, but that's kind of obvious, right? Like, oh yeah, families that are related to these people get together.

This isn't the whole church. I mean, maybe the whole church will come, but it's primarily a matter of families, you know, coming to funerals. Like, it's primarily a matter of families coming to weddings.

And it is right to have worship at these things. Households joined together in religious observance for both rejoicing and mourning. This is just summarizing those two points before. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

Weep with those who weep. Thomas Paget, who wrote a lot on family worship, says, according to occasion justly offered. Notice that they're all thinking this way, right? They're all like, like if it's lawful, like if the occasion is justly offered, if there is a reason to gather, it's not just worship.

As friends and neighbors may feast and rejoice together, so likewise, according to occasion, they may fast and pray together. All right, so households may join together in worship, but the event must be occasioned by something other than worship itself.

All right, yes.

That is a good question. Yeah, because otherwise, I mean, it's no different than secret worship, right? So like, what would you even do? Like secret worship than like fake family worship that is secret worship?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that would kind of make sense to me. Yeah, I don't think Scripture envisions that as being a normal situation. But actually, we are going to look at that in the next section, yeah. Okay, so what about if you are outside of households?

So I guess this is pretty analogous to the situation you're describing. So I'm imagining, you know, two people on an aircraft carrier, right? And like, this is, you know, they're away from their family, they're not the one household to worship.

Should they get together and meet? So this is pretty similar to what Sarah's describing. The disciples worship together outside of a household or a church setting. So, you know, Matthew 26, 26, maybe you'd call this a church setting, but yeah, maybe this was a bad example.

But anyway, you know, Jesus is, actually, this is probably a really bad example since it's suggesting that communion could be had out of a church setting. But my point is, you do see the disciples gathering together and we're not, yeah, it's not, yeah, it's not like a typical family situation.

Yeah, scratch that example. But Paul and Silas worshiped together outside of a household or church setting. Acts 16, 25, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them.

This is away from the church, away from their families. Ephesian elders worshiped together outside of a household church setting. So this is a bunch of elders getting together without their churches. They still all worship.

Right, but they have a reason to be there, right, to be with Paul. Paul and Silas find themselves abandoned by everybody else. Right, they can't, they cannot meet with everybody else. They're providentially hindered from meeting with other people.

And so in those cases, it is right to gather. When individuals worship together apart from a household or church setting, it is occasioned by some event or providential hindrance for joining their family or church.

So yeah, if you find that case where you don't have a household, it is good for you to join with others.

All right, yeah.

When persons of diverse families are brought together by divine providence, being abroad upon their particular vocations, right, like on an aircraft carrier or something, or any necessary occasions as they would have the Lord their God with them where withersoever they go, they ought to walk with God and not neglect the duties of prayer and thanksgiving, but take care that the same be performed by such as the company shall judge fittest.