The life of our Lord was filled with private devotion as well as collective discipleship. The two are no enemies, but rather both are necessitated by the two Greatest Commands. i.e., I love God and out of that love I therefore retreat into His presence and His wonderful, gracious words. I love neighbor, and therefore out of that love I do exhort them towards the One solely equipped to “fill full” their lives and the purpose of their very being.
Luke records of Christ that He "often withdrew to lonely places and prayed". And yet His ministry was characterized by the intensive apprenticeship of His disciples, wherein they followed Him and learned from His example how to live as God intended from the beginning.
In the Petrine epistle, Christ is said to have left a pattern (tupos) for us to follow in His footsteps. If we fail to follow after (pursue) His example of either private devotion or collective devotion, it seems we would be missing part of that picture, and failing — in part — to follow in His footsteps.
We are told not to look each one of us to our own interests, but to look out for the benefit of our brethren (Philippians 2:4), and to “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2) This requires attentiveness (“look unto”, he says) to a community of believers (Philippians 2:4).
And yet we are told shortly thereafter in the same passage that each must bear his own burden (Galatians 6:5).
Therefore, I am the keeper of my brother. I would adopt the spirit of Cain were I to reject this truth.
And yet, each ONE (individual) must “appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil”. And no one shall answer in that capacity on my behalf. My own allegiance and fidelity is the burden that, ultimately, I alone must carry and be responsible for.
As concerns overconfidence in the messages from the pulpit and lack of critical examination, I recall that the Spirit expressly commands us in 2 Thessalonians to “prove all things; hold fast to what is good”.
The same aforementioned passage of Galatians contains the statement “if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.”
Just as we must test (prove) all teachings, so we must prove our own practice, to test whether it indeed accords with the holy and most beneficent will of God as revealed by Christ through them that He chose to record His doctrine. Just as the Bereans did test and prove the gospel preached by Paul, in confirming it via the Spirit-inspired text of the Old Testament messianic prophecies.
We must test and prove: is this patterned after Christ?
Excursus
There are several things Paul says in the prison epistles that encourage me when I am frustrated with local fellowship. These encourage me because they remind me that God has a big picture plan for His sheep (those that hear Christ’s voice and follow Him)
“He has taken captive many captives, and given gifts to men.”
And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as shepherds and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:8, 11–12).
And all of this is unto growth—“that we may grow up in all things into Him who is the head, Christ”—from whom the whole body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Ephesians 4:15–16).
And what is the church for? What is its telos?
The Church is to display Christ: “the manifold wisdom of God” is to be made known through the Church, even to “the principalities and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10).
This is according to the eternal purpose which God purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 3:11)—that in all things Christ might have the preeminence (Colossians 1:18), and that in all things He might be all in all (cf. Ephesians 1:23; 1 Corinthians 15:28).
Therefore, the Church is not an end in itself.
Christ is.
The gifts are for the work.
The work is the building up of the body.
The body grows toward its Head, Christ — Eternal Wisdom from the Father, who became love incarnate, and through Whom are grace, and peace.
And every joint supplies.
To Him alone be the glory, in the church, unto all generations, forever and ever.
Amen.
