Meeting face-to-face

Social media guru, Erik Qualman, recently enumerated 40+ Things Tech Will Kill This Digital Decade. He predicts items as commonplace as wristwatches, paperbacks, DVD’s, alarm clocks, greeting cards – and even the Post Office that once delivered them – will soon go the way of the Dodo, supplanted by “smarter” technology.

Surprisingly, he listed at 24 something that is quite irreplaceable: “Face-to-Face Conversation.” Qualman writes, “Sad, but true. We have less interpersonal communication than in years past.” It is indeed sad for all humanity, but it would be even more tragic to the faith of Church.

Meeting face-to-face has been integral to the faithfulness of every generation of God’s people. As we saw in Malachi 3:16-18 on the Lord’s Day evening, we are assured that when God’s people gather they are both helped by one other in a world of unbelief (see vv. 13-16), as well as heard by the Lord who will adopt them for all eternity (see v. 18).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer poignantly captured this in his classic, Life Together:

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer… The believer therefore lauds the Creator, the Redeemer, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the bodily presence of a brother… God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him… The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain; his brother’s is sure.

Our God is an omnipresent Spirit, but He created us to be finite bodies, mere dust and breath. We need the physical presence and audible words of our brothers and sisters. If joined with biblical discernment, every technology may be harnessed for God’s glory. But no technology – however “smart” – can ever replace meeting together to exalt the Lord and to exhort, encourage, and even embrace one another. May our high view of spiritual things accordingly give us a high view of our physical meetings.

Until We Meet Again,

Pastor Steve