Short Take: Believers are being told staying home from church is about “loving neighbor”.Your reply?

This particular charge has been brought up often, you know, if Christians really want to love our neighbor, the best way to love our neighbor is to not gather together and to get each other sick, so when we interact with them, we get them sick. How do you respond to that particular criticism, coming mainly from, I think, the Christian community to say, let's not get together because we want to love our neighbor better? You can only show your neighbor love by suspending your public worship services. I think neglect, what has been one of the most damaging and hurtful effects of this long quarantine, and that is there are lots of people who have been sick or died, not from the virus, but from other causes, who died in seclusion in nursing homes and hospitals, because their families weren't even permitted to visit.

And there are thousands of stories like that across the country from people who have been hurt more by the quarantine than they have by the virus. And what about love for them as well? What about love for people whose fears have been stoked by the media and the government? And the answer to those fears is the preaching of the gospel. And that's the church's job, and yet the church is being kept from being the church by draconian governmental decrees.

Love for my neighbor takes all of those things into account. The fact is, we've been meeting at Grace Church now for more than eight weeks. There hasn't been a single outbreak of the virus. You were there at the Shepherds Conference. There was an elderly man who apparently, as they've traced it, contracted the virus before he came to the conference. So he had it while he was here, caught it from others in his family, and then died shortly after, sadly. But he was here and all over the conference.

I hugged him and greeted him. And I don't think there's any known case of anyone who caught the virus from him. So we know there were people at the conference who were exposed to the virus. But no outbreak of serious sickness or death as a result. And then we've met eight weeks at Grace Church, and just none of the dire consequences that we keep hearing are possible. Is it possible that eventually there'll be people at Grace Church who get the virus and get sick?

Yeah. But that's been possible with every virus that's ever come along. And the COVID-19 thing, as we've talked about, especially if you're younger than I am, I'm 67, anybody younger than I am really doesn't face a serious risk of death from this virus. There are people younger who have died from it.

But it isn't like the sort of Spanish flu epidemic was a hundred years ago. It isn't even in that realm. When you ask, what is the Church's responsibility in the midst of this? It's the Church that should be ministering to people who are living in fear and troubled about the future and troubled about eternity. And yet the Church is forbidden to meet together. That is not a command I can submit to. I'm honoring Christ and truly loving my neighbor. I've said before, anyone who thinks that the Second Great Commandment, love your neighbor as yourself, is completely fulfilled because you're wearing a mask and socially distancing, I don't think you really understand the implications of that commitment. Mm hmm.