Even though Paul does not specifically tell Timothy that he needed to teach each time the church gathered, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. You cited Acts 2 as not supporting the Lord's Supper being practiced every week. You even commented on the Apostles teaching. They were doing this daily. Such was the state of the early church in Jerusalem. They gathered daily. Now the church gathers weekly. Is it too much to ask to teach the Word of God on the only day the corporate body is commanded to meet?
But you've just made my point. The early church did these things daily, we generally do them one, 2, or 3 times a week, and the Lord's supper even less frequently. Very few would argue that we should have a sermon every day.
You have simply made an emotional appeal "is it too much to ask to teach the Word of God on the only day the corporate body is commanded to meet?" It is similar to those would argue for a sunday evening service simply by saying, "Is it too much to ask to hear God's word twice on Sundays, when the rest of the week you won't hear it."
The NT epistles were mostly written by Apostles (Peter, John, and Paul). Apostolic letters carried with them Apostolic authority. Reading them to the early church was expected. Not every letter proved to be canonical. There were more letters written than actually made it into the Bible. But the churches that the Apostles wrote to also had elders (Acts 20:17). The elders would probably have added their comments. They have would have helped explain these letters. We cannot assume that everyone in the church is going to understand the correct meaning of a passage. Scripture needs to be explained. Again, this is the job of the pastor (and elders).
We can probalby ASSUME that adding comments to the reading and even preaching was the NORMAL practice, but we can't KNOW FOR SURE that it was the REQUIRED, EVERY SUNDAY practice.
My earlier objection was not about when the passage for the sermon is read, but whether reading the passage without teaching and exhortation is acceptable. In light of 2 Timothy 4:1-2 it is, a best, highly irregular and, at worse, improper.
You've made my point again, it is irregular, and MIGHT POSSIBLY be improper...but based on WHAT?
Another example might give a different perspective, so please bear with me an consider the following hypothetical example:
--> A pastor stands up to preach, But immediately passes out due to some illness, and some people help him out and call for an ambulance. The congregation is left in the room and problaby one of 2 things will happen:
1. Some lay leader or associate pastor will stand up and say, "Let's pray for our pastor and his family now." And after the prayer says, "I think the Lord and the pastor would want us to hear a message from God's word, and so reads a passage and gives a short explaination and exhoration based on some past study.
2. Some lay leader or associate pastor stands up and says, "Let's take this time to simply pray for our pastor, and after we finish, we'll go home to our families and keep the pastor in prayer."
Has the second church sinned in someway by not having a sermon in this unique, non-standard situation?
