Imagine if some of the things we are writing as pastors/theologians got put in future textbooks for Christians to read a couple hundred years from now? Imagine these new Christians reading how we are recommending people to keep a minimum 6 feet distance from one another...

, to wear a face mask in public, and to avoid physically gathering together in worship. Now imagine if these Christians several hundred years in the future said, "Well, these Christians who went before us heavily emphasized the importance of staying apart...

of not gathering together as Christians, but solely meeting on some kind of platforms called Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Hangouts. We are not sure what Zoom, MT, or GH are but they seemed important. So, we feel it is important to continue to stay apart and only gather if

absolutely necessary." We would look at the situation as say, "No, they are missing the point! This was because of all of Coronavirus, it was for that specific time and place and was not meant to be forever. They should be gathering together to worship, learn, grow, and pray."

This also reminds me today how important it is for us to read the scriptures in their context of the first century and avoid trying to understand everything through our Western eyes of today. Too often I believe we just want to copy and paste what was said in the scriptures and

then apply them exactly to today. But when we read the scriptures let us read them with the understanding of when it was written, who was it written too, why was it written, what was the author trying to communicate? Context is important.