Do Christians have to gather together physically? No.

Do Christians have to gather together physically? No.

1. If this were true, then a persecuted Christian who sits alone in prison would be in disobedience, and Christians would feel pressured to avoid doing courageous things that risk persecution and imprisonment and thereby being in disobedience.

2. The key Bible text is Hebrews 10:25, which has multiple possible meanings that are honourable, sanctifying, and sound-minded, in contrast to reading it to mean that Christians must gather physically even during a deadly contagion. 

Look at the context (verses 24 through 27):

"And mind each other diligently, to incitement of loving-kindness and good works, not abandoning the gathering up together of yourselves, according to what is a custom to some; instead, appealing to each other even this much more: as much as you see the Day nears. For if we are sinning voluntarily after the receiving of the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins remains: instead, some fearful expectation of judgement, and a jealousy of fire coming to eat the adversarial ones."

What do you think the focus of this text is?

How many ways does this text re-focus attention on the need for caring for each other's holiness, which does not require meeting physically at all. Saints Paul and John and Peter and Jude and James wrote letters to care for people's souls and protect their salvation. So we have a clear approval for caring for each other's holiness using methods that do not involve meeting physically.

What does the phrase "not abandoning the gathering up together of yourselves" refer to? Must it refer to regular, for example weekly, physical meetings by Christians?

No. The Greek word used here is episunagogé  (ἐπισυναγωγή). In 2 Thessalonians 2:1, it refers to the Last Day when Christ's faithful will be gathered up together to Christ. In Matthew 24:31, the verb-form of this word (episunágo, ἐπισυνάγω) also refers to the Last Day and the same action:

"And He will send the angels of His with a great battle-horn. And they will gather up together the chosen ones of His from the four winds, from heavens' extremities unto their other extremities."

A Christian reader then of Hebrews 10:25 is well supported in understanding the verse to mean that they must not abandon the spiritual welfare of other Christians, namely the goal that they too will be gathered up together by Christ's angels on the Last Day. Remember the warnings given in Hebrews 10 and 12 and elsewhere in the New Testament, that Christians can lose their salvation, and depend on the action of other Christians to protect their holiness.

"Pursue peace with all, and the holiness, without which no one will see the Lord; keeping watch so there be not any falling short of the grace of God, nor any root of bitterness that springing up cause trouble and through which many be defiled, nor any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one meal gave away the first-born privileges of his. For you have seen that even afterward, wanting to inherit the blessing, he was deemed unworthy. Indeed he found no place for repentance—yes even having sought it with weeping." (Hebrews 12:14-17)

"And these will go away to an eternal correction, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25:46)

Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2020 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.