And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,
Hebrews 10:24
Provoke, Not Nudge
Hebrews was written to believers who were getting tired. They'd been under pressure long enough that some of them were drifting, and the writer keeps circling back to the same instruction. Hold on. Don't let go. Right before this verse they say, "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful."
Then they tell you how that holding on happens, and it's not what you'd expect. It happens through other people.
The word behind "spur one another on" is paroxysmos. It shows up twice in the New Testament. Once here, and once in Acts, where Luke uses it for the falling-out between Paul and Barnabas that got so sharp the two of them stopped traveling together. Same word, both times. In Acts it's a fight. Here it's love.
So this isn't a gentle nudge. It's friction. It's a push that gets a response out of somebody, aimed at something good. "Consider" isn't a passing thought either. It's the attention you'd give a problem you intend to solve.
The writer isn't asking you to be nice to people at church. They're asking you to think hard about how to get someone moving.
Consider One Person
Most of us hear "one another" and picture a crowd. The verse doesn't work at that size. You can't consider a crowd. You consider a person, and then you consider what would move that person, because what fires up one friend will shut down another.
This looks like texting the guy who's been out of church for two months, and asking how he is before you ask anything else. It looks like asking your small group to check whether you did what you said you'd do, and meaning it. It looks like showing up at the hospital instead of commenting on the post. It looks like telling a friend you saw how they handled something hard, and being specific with what you saw, so it's easier for them the next time.
And it looks like letting somebody do it to you. That can be harder. Needing to be stirred up can feel like a failure of faith, like you ought to be able to hold on by yourself. But the writer of Hebrews assumes you can't. The instruction only works if they expect you on both ends of it. You were made to need help. That isn't the flaw in the design. It is the design.
You don't need a title to do any of this. There's no credential attached to the verse. The person God has put closest to someone who's fading is usually not the pastor. It's you.
Verse 25 finishes the thought, "not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." The Day is still coming. Jesus isn't back yet, and until he is, this is the arrangement. You hold on to him, and you help someone else hold on too.
My encouragement to you today is to pick one name. Not the church, not your small group, one person. Then think about what would actually move them, and go do that.
Prayer
Father, thank you that you never asked us to do this alone. Show us the one person you've put in front of us, the one who's tired, or drifting, or holding on by their fingertips. Give us the courage to say what's needed instead of what's safe.
And when we're the one fading, help us to let someone in. Keep us from the pride that would rather struggle alone than be helped. Stir us up toward love. Stir us up toward good. Hold us until the Day you've promised. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.