In Acts 4:31 four things are covered concerning the proper way to meet. First, the apostles with the saints prayed. Second, they spoke the word of God. Third, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. These three things, prayer, the Word, and the Spirit, compose a fourth item—their meeting. This one short verse unveils to us a clear and full picture concerning the way we need to take for our meeting. We need the Word and the Spirit for the meetings, but without prayer the Word is not so real to us, and without prayer the Spirit is not so living to us. We need to exercise our prayer to receive the Word and to apply the Spirit for the meetings.
Generally speaking, the way that Christians meet today is against the few principles revealed in Acts 4:31. Throughout the many centuries of its history, the church became degraded. In nearly all of the things related to the practice of the church, the church degraded from taking the divine way to taking the human way. Concerning the matter of how to meet, in particular, the church degraded to the human, worldly way.
The first verse in the New Testament which tells us something concerning how the believers in Christ should meet is Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together into My name, there I am in their midst.” This verse unveils to us that the basic number for a local church meeting is two or three. Two or three are gathered into the name, not two or three thousand or even twenty or thirty.
In Matthew 16 and 18 the universal church and the local church are unveiled not in a doctrinal way but in a very experiential, practical way. In Matthew 16 the Lord unveiled the universal church by saying that He would build His church upon the rock of the divine revelation concerning Christ (vv. 16-18). Then in Matthew 18 the Lord unveiled the local church in an experiential way by telling us how to recover a backsliding or sinful brother. In His fellowship concerning how to recover a backsliding brother, the Lord opened a little window for us to see how we believers in the local church should meet.
I do not believe that many of us have ever thought that the basic way to meet with the saints in the local church is by two or three. You could never have a meeting just by yourself; you need someone else to meet with. Due to tradition and to our environment we do not consider a gathering of two believers as a Christian meeting or as a church meeting. However, the Lord’s word shows that a local church should have meetings by two or three.
In Matthew 18:20 the Lord does not say that the two or three meet together in His name, but that these two or three are gathered. The verb in this verse is in the passive voice, which indicates that the two or three are gathered by someone. The meeting is not initiated by the meeting ones but by the unseen Lord who gathered them. Every time we meet, our meeting should not be from us but from Him. He motivates, He initiates, and He gathers us. The meetings related to a local church should be something started from Christ. He has to be the Initiator. He has to call us, invite us, and even somewhat “push us.” Whenever we meet, there are a number among us who have been pushed to the meeting. Without the Lord’s pushing, many of us would not meet together. Our meeting is not initiated by us but by “the Pusher.” The Lord Himself is the Gatherer. He pushes us and brings us together to meet.
The proper translation of Matthew 18:20 is not that two or three are gathered together “in My name” but “into My name.” The Lord does not mean that we just gather together in His name or we just meet in His name. To meet in His name is much different from being gathered together into His name. We are not gathered together into a physical meeting place, but we are gathered together into the name. Because the name always denotes the person, we are gathered into the person of Jesus Christ. We are gathered and even somewhat pushed by the Lord into His name.
For us to be brought into something also means that we are coming out of something else. Actually, the Lord’s pushing is always a rescue. He rescues us from so many things in our environment. Sometimes your tiredness would not allow you to come to the meeting. The Lord, however, did a lot of pushing to rescue you out of your tiredness and bring you into Himself with the other saints in the meeting. In order to gather us into His name, many times the Lord rescues us out of our homes and out of our families. Sometimes the Lord may rescue a sister out of her husband and children or a brother out of his wife and into His name. Every day there are many things frustrating us and holding us back from coming to the meeting. To come to the meeting is a fight. You have to fight to come to the meeting, but actually the Lord Jesus is fighting within you to pull you out from so many things in your environment and gather you into His name. Matthew 18:20 also tells us that where two or three are gathered into the Lord’s name He is in their midst. Since we all have been rescued and brought into the Lord’s name, surely He is with us.