Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 19
April 18, 1968
NUMBER 49, PAGE 11b

A Word Study Hebrews 10:25

Floyd D. Chappelear

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as ye see the day approaching." What does the above passage teach? Does it teach that it is sinful for an individual to absent himself from a single service of the Lord's church, or any number of services, or does it teach something entirely different? Let us examine its meaning.

1) The word translated "forsaking" is the Greek word, Enkataleipo, meaning, "To forsake, abandon, leave in straits, or helpless, said of things by Christians (Negatively), Heb. 10:25." (Vine's Expository Dictionary) Hence, the action under consideration is one of totally abandoning the "assembling." It does not deal with a single, or even several, instances of missing a service of the Lord's church but rather it deals with the problem of a total separation of the work of the Lord.

2) Another Greek term, Heauton', meaning, "reflexive pronoun of the 3rd person....to denote that the agent and the person acted on are the same" (Thayer's), is the word translated "ourselves." We can readily see, by understanding the definition, that the action is that of the whole church to the whole. Therefore, the forsaking, or abandoning, is something done by all, not just one or two.

Paul was encouraging the readers to strength and was warning them not to disband, or abandon the assembling themselves as they viewed the horrors of the upcoming destruction of Jerusalem. That, Jerusalem's defeat, was the "day" under consideration.

With this understanding we will not be prone to use Heb. 10 25 as a catch-all verse to condemn the one who misses a service or two. Besides, we should not be so concerned with the fact of one's missing but should concern ourselves with why that one missed.

As a recap, let us paraphrase Heb. 10 25. "You are not to abandon the gathering of yourselves together, as some have done but encourage one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day of destruction approaching."