God
commands what believers are to do:
1 Timothy 4:13
Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching.Now, I'd post all the verses where God commands believers to meet in temples or buildings, but God made no such commands. That should be the end of the argument;
do as God has commanded.
However, we will look at New Testament examples.
1.) Paul goes into the
synagogues to teach the Jews of Jesus their Messiah.
2.) Paul never gathers any group of converts to come into the synagogue.
Why not? The synagogue was like a court house where the law of God was to be studied and applied. However, worship was done at the temple in Jerusalem and in their own homes on the appointed Jewish Feast days. Does a word search at Biblegateway.com of "synagogue" and you will find that most often it is referred to as "their synagogue" and never as God's synagogue. The word is not in the Old Testament at all. Men love to build their own kingdoms.
Acts 18:4 And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.
5 But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.
6 But when they resisted and blasphemed, he took out his garments and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean From now on I will go to the Gentiles."
7 Then he left there and [b]went to the house of a man named Titus Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue. 8 Crisps, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized.
9 And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, "Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent;
10 for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for
I have many people in this city."
11 And he settled there a year and six months,
teaching the word of God among them. [/b]
Acts 20:20-21
-how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 19:8
And he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.We discussed public preaching at length at this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=41407&p=372664&hilit=+public+preaching+&sid=7c6a80f66b2b1c60d5b559b781d507f8#p372664As the great preacher, Spurgeon, said of his day, the assembly had degraded into preaching without praying.
Now think of God's wisdom in commanding us to read the word publicly:
1.) You cannot slowly and without detection make a society secular if you have Christians reading the scriptures aloud in public.
2.) However, if Satan can get the Christians to gather in a "holy huddle" and not in public, then he can secularize the whole town apart from that huddle and not allow the Christians to read the word aloud in public. That is exactly what has happened.
3.) If the word was read publicly in a town, and someone was too offended, they would not choose to live in that town or they would gather together to remove the Christians from the town. The command from Christ is to forget them at that point, and we see Paul doing exactly that.
Brothers, we have disobeyed in building churches and forsaking the public reading of the world. The fruit of our disobedience is a secular society, a deceived assembly, wasted funds, and the salt of the earth is not being sprinkled to preserve and enrich the flavor of people's lives. The seeker-friendly movement, Purpose Driven Life, etc., have brought the secular into the assembly that no longer values praying the word, caring for one another, nor building one another into the temple of Christ.
It was another Nimrod that started building projects and called them churches. Think about what went on in public buildings in scripture? Drama, idol worship, perversion. What went on in the homes of believers? Teaching, praying and caring for one another. We are to be holy (which means separate) because God is Holy. We are commanded to "come out of her" the Great City, the harlot, Babylon the Great, which has a form of godliness, but denies the power there of, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.
2 Timothy 3
1This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.