On church attendance

Dr. Barrick is the Professor of Old Testament and Director of Th.D. Studies at The Master's Seminary, and he had the following post regarding the importance of not forsaking the assembling of God's people (Heb 10:24-25). Yes, today is Tuesday and this should be my final post on the book of Jonah. But being that there is a large pile of dirt in my front lawn, I will unashamedly plagiarize, though the quote is great.

Dr. Barrick came across this quote when studying for Psalm 26. It comes from C.H. Spurgeon's "Treasury of David", and originally was a quote from a one "K. Arvine". If you can follow that all the way back, well done. We are now four generations out on this quote!

"'I have in my congregation,' said a venerable minister of the gospel, 'a worthy, aged woman, who has for many years been so deaf as not to distinguish the loudest sound, and yet she is always one of the first in the meeting. On asking the reason of her constant attendance (as it was impossible for her to hear my voice), she answered, "Though I cannot hear you, I come to God's house because I love it, and would be found in his ways; and he gives me many a sweet thought upon the text when it is pointed out to me: another reason is, because there I am in the best company, in the more immediate presence of God, and among his saints, the honourable of the earth. I am not satisfied with serving God in private; it is my duty and privilege to honour him regularly in public."' What a reproof this is to those who have their hearing, and yet always come to a place of worship late, or not at all!" -- K. Arvine (1859) as cited in C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, 3 vols. (reprinted; Peabody, Mass.: Henrickson Publishers, n.d.), 1/1:425.


I love the dedication to the sobering responsibility of being serious about the things of God. We should err toward the side of caution rather than flippancy when we gather. Maybe I'll post someday on my belief that we should not hold coffee during the corporate singing time (and to be clear, that last part was tongue-in-cheek....kind of).