"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together...." (Hebrews 10:25) Protestant leaders tell us that we can't read the Bible as it is written, as we do with any other book.  That's odd.  When God gave Moses the Law on Mt. Sinai, Moses read it to the children of Israel, word for word, exactly as God had written it.  And generation after generation, thereafter, the children of Israel read the Law just as God had written it.  In the New Testament, we see Jesus, His apostles, and other Christians, reading the Law just as God had written it in the beginning.  Paul intended for the Christians to read his epistles just as he had written them.  Never, do we see God telling us that we aren't to read His Word as it is written.

We learned from my second page, "BIBLICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BASIC DOCTRINES OF PROTESTANTISM, the reason Protestant leaders don't want us to read the Word of God as it's written.  They could no longer deceive us into believing that their man-made doctrines were biblical doctrines.

We saw that when we read the traditional, biblical proof-texts of the basic doctrines of Protestantism--going to church, giving tithes and offerings, and keeping the sabbath--as they are written, they don't fit these basic doctrines.  In addition, we saw how Protestant leaders change these proof-texts, the very Word of God, so they will say what their false, man-made doctrines say.  Now we will analyze each of these proof-texts to see exactly what they say and what they mean. "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together...." is the proof-text for going to church. Notice, however, that this is a partial verse and an incomplete sentence.  The sentence actually begins in Hebrews 10:23 and ends at the end of verse 25.

Hebrews 10:21 says, "And having an high priest over the house of God,"  The high priest here is Jesus (Hebrews 4:14) and the house of God is the house that Christ, our high priest, is over.  "...whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." (Hebrews 3:6).  So the house of God is not some building where we are to assemble together in Hebrews 10:21; 25, but we who are Christians.

If the assembling of ourselves together means going to church, then we would find examples in the Bible, where buildings were churches and Christians assembling together in churches, wouldn't we?  We find many examples of Christians assembling together.  But never once do we find them assembling in any kind of building called a church, the house of God, or any holy, sacred place of God's dwelling and presence.

Protestant leaders today define the church as both the Christians and the building where they assemble together, in order to confuse us.  But as I've said before, no where in the entire Bible can we find a building ever called a church.  The Bible defines clearly what the church is.  I Corinthians 12:12, 26 says that those who belong to Christ are members of the one body of Christ.  The Apostle Paul defines Christ's (his) body as the church, "...which is the church." (Colossians 1:24)

The entire book of Hebrews contrasts the Old Covenant Law of Moses with the New Covenant Doctrine of Christ.  And proves that the Law was only a type and shadow of Jesus and His New Covenant Doctrine.  These Christians in Hebrews were trying to keep the New Covenant by the Law of the Old Covenant.  And it couldn't be done.  Once Jesus came and fulfilled the Law by dying for our sins, the Law became useless, since He to whom the Law pointed had come.

This is still the subject in Hebrews 10:25 and the reason that they were not to forsake the assembling of themselves together.  So they could be provoked unto love and to good works (of Jesus' New Covenant, and the works of the Law - Hebrews 10:24)  We will see later why it is so wrong to call a building, where Christians gather together, a church.

Hebrews 10:25 can't possibly be used as a proof-text to prove that "going to church" is a biblical doctrine, but proves rather that "going to church" is an unbiblical doctrine.  And since this doctrine is unbiblical, it is, therefore, a false doctrine.

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse...." (Malachi 3:10).  I've already established that the tithes of Malachi 3:10 doesn't say anything about ten-percent of the Jews' income.  Nor do the offerings in verse 8 say anything about offerings over and above ten-percent tithes.

We need to find out exactly to whom God was speaking.  In Malachi 1:6 and Malachi 2:1, we see that God was speaking only to the priests, throughout the book of Malachi, and not to the rest of the Jews.  As you read the entire book of Malachi, the only way you will know what the correct interpretation of Malachi 3:10 is, you will plainly see that God is not rebuking the Jews for not giving tithes.  But He is rebuking the priests for not sacrificing the correct offerings of the Jews tithes which they had given to the priests.  The priests received tithes of the children of Israel once a year at the Feast of Harvest (Exodus 23:16), the firstfruits of their labors.  Their tithes were the first of the firstfruits of the harvest (v. 19); not ten-percent of their harvest.

The priests, in turn, took ten-percent of the firstfruit tithes and sacrificed offerings from them unto the Lord, according to God's commandment, Lev. 23:9-14.  And the priests gave the tenth of the tithes to Aaron, the high priest. (Numbers 18:21-32).  Notice in Numbers 18:32, God warned the priest that if they polluted the holy things of the children of Israel, they would die.  This is exactly what God is telling the priests in Malachi 3:8-9.  In verse 10, God is giving these disobedient priests a way to escape the curse by sacrificing the correct offerings of the high priest,' ten-percent portion and bringing it to him in the temple, the storehouse.

Malachi 3:10 is not the law of the tithes.  Nor is Malachi 3:9 the law of sacrificing the correct offerings of the tithes.  God's law concerning the tithe is recorded in Exodus through Deuteronomy, but not in Malachi.  Malachi 3:7-9 is God's rebuke to the priests, but not His rebuke to the rest of the Jews for not giving tithes.

The New Covenant law of giving is located in II Corinthians 8:12-15.  Nothing is said here of giving ten-percent of our income, or offerings, over and above the ten-percent tithes.  The fact of the matter is, you will not find it nowhere in the entire Bible.  This doctrine originated in the Catholic Church with Augustine in the fifth entury and became a law of the Catholic Church in the sixth century.

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy" {Exodus 20:8).  Ironically, Protestant leaders use Exodus 20:8, God's commandment to the Jews under the Law of the Old Covenant concerning the seventh-day Sabbath, as the proof-text for their doctrine, "keeping the sabbath.  Yet they claim that God changed the law of the sabbath in the New Covenant to the first day of the week.  And they use the Acts 20:7 and I Corinthians 16:2 to prove it.  But where does it say in these scriptures that God changed the sabbath from the seventh day to the first day?  Just because the disciples at Troas and Corinth came together on the first day of the week, doesn't make the first day of the week the Christian sabbath.  Nor did Jesus tell His disciples to come together, first of all, on any day; not the first day of the week because He had made it the Christian sabbath, or the Jewish seventh-day sabbath.

At, what we call, "the last supper", Jesus didn't mention a day or a sabbath but He told His disciples that they were to take of the bread and the cup "in remembrance of me" as often as they came together.

In the second chapter of this series, I pointed out from Exodus 20 how Protestants don't keep their first-day sabbath anything like God commanded the Jews in Exodus 20:8-10 to keep their seventh-day sabbath.  Why then do they use Exodus 20:8 as a proof-text for their sabbath when nothing about it compares even the slightest to their sabbath, except for the word "sabbath"?