Heaven’s hospital, where love kisses away the hurts the doctor can’t see.
Why, when I was a boy… I must be over 50; reminiscence comes easier all the time. Nonetheless it is true that the believers were often in one another’s homes when I was young. Today we have little excuse. North American believers generally have substantial houses, and air conditioned cars to transport them in ease from one place to another. (My father used to say, “Solomon in all his glory was not conveyed in one of these!”) We have freezers and microwaves, 12-piece settings of china and dish washers to finish the task (all this must provide strange reading for our brothers and sisters in India and Africa who receive the magazine). Yet for all this, we live increasingly lonely lives, isolated from one another.
Hymn sings around the piano in a believer’s home have been replaced by entertainment centers that pump out the music for us. Preferably into insulated headphones. Are we the better for it? Hardly. It was during those times that we tuned our young voices, learned to sing in parts, enjoyed age-less fellowship, and increased our repertoire (like Redemption Songs, with 1000 hymns and choruses!).
It was in each others’ homes that we saw the Christians laugh—and weep. We saw past the Sunday smile and the starched shirts. We learned to sympathize with them, to appreciate them as real people. When you learn about their heart-aches and daily challenges, you can be a little more patient with their foibles. They became real friends and were not so easy to let go when assembly problems hit, as they will from time to time.
“Ye know the house of Stephanas…that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Cor. 16:15). They might have had good reasons not to do it—short of time, tight on money, or they just liked their privacy—but they couldn’t help themselves. They were addicted; they “set themselves” to do it, and wouldn’t let anything stop them.
Three cheers for such households today. Will yours be one? You will have to set yourselves to do it. But in the end it will be the best thing you can do for your own family, and one of the best things you can do for His family, too.