Comments on: 12 Reasons why public worship is better than private worship

By: Brian Matthew white

Brian Matthew white — Sat, 30 Dec 2017 14:11:00 +0000

Any church that would deny him the right and joy of The word, feeling the spirit of God, fellowship, and love within its congregation that God has promised everyone who seeks him or knocks on the door ( in my opinion the spirit may not even be present In this congregation and I say that with much disappointment and sadness because congregations that are truly connected with the spirit of God make decisions that are according to God’s will and his perfect judgment and love ALWAYS because God guides his people. God tells us to sow the word within our hearts not only our minds. Anyone who would tell you that someone with autism doesn’t “understand” the scripture just blows my mind completely god can be blessing someone with autism even more understanding than anyone else in the entire church if that were his will. This fully convinces me that they are really the ones who have no understanding of the things they think they are teaching. The only understanding of the word of God is allowed to you BY GOD HIMSELF any true servant of God will tell you that everything he teaches you and leads you to and of the word is not from him but from God himself even and especially the circumstance of baptism or prophecy. Taking credit for this would be considered prideful which God is very very passionately trying to tell us that he dislikes pride so very much all through the bible. It isn’t for me to judge others but if I had done this myself I would be filled with extreme guilt. Creating a stumbling block to someone coming closer to Gods love mercy and holy spirit promised to the world by Jesus himself would not be something Jesus would want. God tells us that any wrong doing you do to your brother you also do to him!!! that would mean that you had denied that person his path to Jesus and god. Sadly that means that you have directly denied god and Jesus and we all know that the bible says all who deny his son he will also deny them before the father. The situation is so extremely dramatically worse than what they realize which is something that hurts my heart and makes me pity them because the punishment would feel to myself to be very extreme under his judgement especially because someone who would do that in the first place would probably never ask for his forgiveness because he wouldn’t have understood the seriousness of the sin he had committed or even realize it was a sin I just can not belive that someone really told you to do that!!! I pray to God for him and his entire family that they find a fellowship that is guided by our most high great and gracious loving lord filled beyond measure with the holy spirit left here for us which feels more amazing and pure than any feeling ive ever had!!!! I also very aggressively with love pray for the ones who said these things about their brother who has an affliction of his mind as autism that they cannot understand the scripture implying that God requires a man have perfect health mentally to have his blessing just like they do and even pushing him away from the congregation to see the error of their ways and quickly do anything they can to offer retribution and ask for forgiveness from God and towards u and your family and that God shows him mercy and most importantly they realize that God wants us to spread the word to ALL his children without discrimination and the word is not meant for ourselves but to pass on to others and continue to do so even more eagerly than they ever had before because of the true knowledge brought to light by the realization given to them by god through mine and others complete faith that this prayer will be granted because it is pleasing to the lord for the reason it is not for self. I humbly plead very passionately that anyone who sees this will join me in this prayer and that god will hear and bless the church with great improvement of spirit overflowing beyond measure and we fall down on their knees in praise for our holy god with all of our might and hearts and god forgives the wrong doing spoken of and our own sins as we ALL fall short of the glory of god. Truth is that the person with autism and his entire family have been blessed for someone causing them this heartache. Rejoice in the times you are done wrong because God tells us we will surely be blessed as long as we ourselves forgive. Thank you all and be safe be watchful stay awake and put on the full armor of God and praise our Lord who love us beyond comprehension the rest of our days with love for him as well as each other. P.S. I’m not fully sure why I was so compelled to write this. I just felt the very intense need to. God works through us to help others and I always try to answer gods desire for my calling. I would die for our Lord or kill if he called me to and of course smaller stuff like providing insight to whoever god obviously knew needed to hear that LOVE is LIFE!! I love you all my Christian brothers and sisters

By: Janneke

Janneke — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 23:33:00 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly. I would like your view on our situation though. We have a child (8) with severe (non verbal) autism. We have waited with taking him into church until he turned seven, and since then we have taken him to the evening service only and taken him out as soon as he got too noisy. He can be very noisy though, humming a lot which is not too loud but occasionally squeeling or laughing out loud. It is part of his disability and unlikely to change even when he gets older. The congregation and minister seemed positive, until last Sabbath a particularly loud laugh made the minister cut short his prayer and we have now had a visit from the minister and an elder requesting that we stop taking him into church but keep him in the crèche (back room with video link). The minister’s view is that he disrupts the service, that it doesn’t feel like worship anymore, that the other 150 people have a right to worship God in reverence without it being ‘spoiled’ by our son. He also says that our son doesn’t understand the worship anyway, he doesn’t benefit from it and he can be saved without it and the best place for him to hear the gospel is ‘on his mother’s knee’. He says that we just have to accept that God in His providence has given our son an affliction that keeps him from the worship. We ourselves feel that it is not our son’s ‘affliction’ that keeps him from the public worship but people’s inability to accept him as he is. We feel he belongs at the public worship as a baptised member of the visible church and he is bound to benefit by it whether he understands the gospel or not. We do understand he can cause a distraction and have been sensitive to it, not taking him out when he is particularly hyper, not taking him out at communion times etc etc. But we cannot accept that it would be God’s will that he be in effect banned from Public Worship for life. Is our minister right in saying that attending the Public Worship isn’t important for our son due to his disability?

By: John Stephen

John Stephen — Sun, 13 Aug 2017 15:34:00 +0000

You are a false teacher according to 2Peter 2:1
Nowhere in the New Testament worship is mentioned we are commanded only to pray.

By: Nakita Proverbs31Woman

Nakita Proverbs31Woman — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 07:56:00 +0000

I was beginning to worry about this, as I read through my concern was that this is misleading and why, we can explore the scriptures and lers begin first with Jesus Himself, whenever He needed strength and guidance from the Father He always went into prayer in the morning while it was still dark, these instances are found in Mark 1, Luke 5, 6 and more Jesus always spent more time alone with the Father and spent less time with man, this is why it was easy to cast out demons and heal the sick effortlessly. The people of God these days are less and less effective because they spend more time with man and less time with God alone.

I speak from experience, because my husband and I find our work in ministry and other areas more effective because we spend alot of time in prayer together even after bible study with the church 7-9pm on a Fridaynight, we continue in prayer from 10-12 midnight when people have head back home after the bible study.

We also take personal time alone daily to study the Word and pray. Private Worship is priority and remember, we are the temple where the Holy Spirit resides in, not the building. People may prefer public worship because they don’t have to worry about private worship and they can get lost in the crowd and caught up in the moment and they leave dry and even dryer than they came.

And I end if thus nite, His Word: Matthew 18:20King James Version (KJV)
20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

By: Nakita Proverbs31Woman

Nakita Proverbs31Woman — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 07:39:00 +0000

Absolutely agree with ýour response, so on point.

By: steven cyrus

steven cyrus — Sat, 22 Apr 2017 05:04:00 +0000

Benefit no 13 is we can meet new peoplewhere we can practice sexual immorality. That’s the greatest blessing of all.

By: ron

ron — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 17:08:00 +0000

Matthew 6:1
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

By: Ian Newton

Ian Newton — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 04:18:00 +0000

I disagree as well. Private worship takes true dedication; when no one else is with you but GOD you truly worship Him, you put aside your time, privately to worship Him. When you worship in public you may be do so to feel as part of the community and may not be focused completely on glorifying GOD. In regards to Regeneration, many people have been Born Again privately and in fact it is properly fair to saw more people are truly Born Again when in private. I was Born Again in my bedroom, alone with GOD for example not at an altar where the emotion of the music and peer-presser may create a false convert.

One of the points is “God manifests Himself more clearly in public worship than in private.” This is at least a bit of a stretch. Consider Elisha (1 Kings 18:16-46 and 1 Kings 19:9-18) , the later shows GOD’s greatness even when just one man worships Him.) and Moses (when he went to comune with GOD in the Holy of Holies.) for example. GOD manifests Himself in the congregation too; I’m not denying that, but to say He does so more often within a group is pushing it. We can reflex on the times we have had while in prayer alone with Him for example. When in a group we can sometimes be caught up in a emotional spirit but not experience The Holy Spirit together. We may be disobeying Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:5-6, only instead of prayer we may be worshiping as hypocrites.

We cannot allow ourselves to become so dependable on others; we must be zealous for His Name through private dedication–when there are no self-righteous rewards. But of course, we must also strengthen the church.

By: bob roberts

bob roberts — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 02:44:29 +0000

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

By: 12 Reasons Why Public Worship is Even More Important Than Private Worship | Redeemer OPC

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 12:22:38 +0000

[…] Surprising, isn’t it? We all know the Puritans’ welcome emphasis on private devotion and personal godliness. But they actually rated public worship even higher. For example, David Clarkson, colleague and successor to John Owen, preached a sermon on Psalm 87:2 entitled Public worship to be preferred before private, and gave 12 reasons why: [KEEP READING] […]