Biblical Basics for Christian Community

http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/whatisachurch.htm#oct206
by Mark Roberts

. . . No matter what connotation for the English word "church" you prefer, either the architectural one, the congregational one, or the institutional one, one thing is clear: "church" has religious connotations. A church is either a building used for religious purposes, or it is a group of people who have gathered for religious purposes, or it is a larger configuration of people who have been organized for religious purposes (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church). Say the word "church" and anyone who understands English will think "religious entity."

This was not the case for ekklesia in first-century Greek parlance. If, for example, a Christian traveler showed up on the streets of Corinth in the first-century A.D. and asked for the location of the ekklesia, nobody outside of the tiny Christian community there would direct him to a religious building or gathering. Nobody would think he was asking about anything that had to do with the gods or with religious practices. An ekklesia wasn't anything like a church. Greek had words for religious gatherings, words such as thiasos (cultic society) or synagoge (Jewish gathering). But ekkelsia wasn't one of these words.
Ironically, one might same the same thing for the use of the word ekklesia in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, abbreviated as LXX). This word appears about 100 times in the LXX, almost always translating the Hebrew term qahal. Both words, ekklesia and qahal, have the basic meaning of "assembly" or "gathering." They can be used to describe a gathering for religious purposes, but the words themselves don't have religious connotations. They need something like "of the Lord" to make the religious setting clear.

So, if "church" in English always suggests something religious, whether buildings or gatherings of people or organizations, and ekklesia does not have this meaning in the time when the New Testament was written, then translating ekklesia by "church" almost certainly leads to some level of misunderstanding on the part of the reader. When it comes to the vocabulary of the New Testament, truly "a church is not a church."

So, then, what is the New Testament understanding of ekklesia? If this word isn't equivalent to "church," what other English word or words might better render the sense of ekklesia?

. . . Almost all New Testament uses of ekklesia are distinctive in comparison to secular Greek, since ekklesia is almost always used to denote an usual gathering, that is, of believers in Jesus. In Acts of the Apostles, however, this term is used three times in a more or less ordinary sense, though perhaps ironically.

The context for this usage is Paul's ministry in Ephesus (a city in what is now western Turkey). For two years he preached the gospel, with considerable success. Many residents of Ephesus put their faith in Jesus and rejected their pagan practices. This led to a sharp decrease in the sales of little silver trikets of one of the most popular pagan gods, Artemis. Those who made their living by making and selling these souvenir idols became enraged, fearing the loss of their livelihood. So they stirred up their fellow Ephesians, who all rushed together to the theatre at the center of town, dragging a couple of Paul's companions with them. Acts tells us that the assembly in the theatre was in great confusion. The Greek word translated as "assembly" is ekklesia (Acts 19:32).

When one man tried to address the gathering, he was shouted down because the pagan Ephesians were biased against him owing to his being Jewish. Finally one of the civic leaders of Ephesus managed to quiet the people down. He told them not to worry about the worship of Artemis, and to follow appropriate legal actions if they had been wronged by Paul and his retinue. The leader concluded by saying, "If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly [ennomoi ekklesiai, literally, the lawful ekklesia or assembly]" (19:39). Then, Acts tells us, the official "dismissed the assembly [ekklesian]" (19:40).

From this story in Acts we can learn several things about the word ekklesia. Most simply, it meant "assembly" or "gathering." It referred to some sort of meeting of people who had come together for a particular purpose. In Greek society, the ekklesia was the assembly of full citizens in a particular city. (Most residents were not full citizens at that time.) Thus the ekklesia was rather like the city council in a modern American city in terms of its authority.

Etymologically, the word ekklesia was derived from the verb ek-kaleo, which meant "to call people together" or "to summon" them. This does not mean, however, that ekklesia really meant "the called-out people," as is sometimes claimed by preachers. Those who wrote the New Testament and those who read what they had written would not have thought of ekklesia in light of its etymological roots. For them, the word meant "assembly" without a hint of whether those who gathered had been called out or not. It's like when you hear the word "microwave." This word denotes a certain kind of oven. You and I don't think of the fact that "microwave" was derived from the combination of "micro" and "wave," and uses high-frequency electromagnetic waves. Rather, "microwave" means "that white oven over there in which I warm up my leftover pizza."

Ekklesia was a common Greek word for a gathering of people. It came to have a special meaning in reference to the assembly of the voting citizens of a city. In this sense it was the "regular assembly" referred to in Acts 19:39. But, as we saw in Acts 19:32 and 40, ekklesia could also be used to describe an unplanned and unruly crowd of people (perhaps ironically).

As I mentioned . . . ekklesia was not used specifically for religious convocations, not did it have religious overtones. The first-century Greek speaker would not thought of the gods or of a religious gathering when hearing the word ekklesia. Thus if I were a Bible translator, I'd opt for "assembly" or "gathering" rather than church for most New Testament instances of ekklesia. What gives the Christian ekklesia its distinctiveness is not the fact that it is an ekkelesia, but the fact that it is an ekklesia in God. More on this later.

All of this raises some fascinating questions about the meaning of ekklesia in early Christianity, and why the early Christians chose this particular word to describe their meetings.

. . . The Earliest Usage of Ekklesia in the New Testament

Unquestionably, the earliest written use of ekklesia in the New Testament comes from the letters of Paul. Scholars differ on which of Paul's letters was the earliest. Some opt for Galatians; while others prefer 1 Thessalonians. I'm in the "others" group for reasons I won't go into here. When Paul wrote his first letter to the Christians in Thessalonica (in Macedonia, an area of northern Greece), he began in this way:

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the ekklesia of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thes 1:1)
Presumably, of course, he had taught the Thessalonian Christians to think of themselves as an ekklesia, so they would know what he was referring to when he used this word.

The phrase "ekklesia of the Thessalonians" would have had an established, commonly-understood meaning in this city. It denoted the gathering of citizens to govern the city. But Paul qualified his use of this phrase and therefore limited misunderstanding by adding "in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." The Christians gathered in Thessalonica were not equivalent to the civic ekklesia. Rather, they were an alternative assembly, one that met "in God" and "in Christ." "In" means something like "by the work of" or "under the authority of" or "for the sake of."

Given what we've seen earlier about the meaning of ekklesia, it's quite likely that Paul was referring to the actual gathering of Christians in Thessalonica. He envisioned that his letter would be read in this gathering, and he was addressing the people who were in fact there. There's no evidence that he was thinking, as we might think, of all the members of the Thessalonian church, whether they were present for the reading or not. Paul was addressing a real assembly, and actual gathering of people. These were the ekklesia.

Support for this understanding of church comes also from Paul's letter to Galatians. He addresses this letter to: "The churches [ekklesiais] of Galatia" (1:2). The use of the plural is telling here. When Paul writes a letter to the Christians in the region of Galatia (in the center of modern Turkey), he does not think of them as some sort of spiritual group that could be called a single ekklesia, even though it never gathered together in the same place. Rather, they were a bunch of ekklesiai, "assemblies" in the plural.

It may well be that in some of Paul's later writings, notably Colossians and Ephesians, he expands the sense of ekklesia beyond this basic sense. I'll discuss this later. For now, however, I want to make the simple point that the basic meaning of ekklesia includes the notion of an actual gathering of real people. Paul wouldn't know what you meant if you said, "The Thessalonian ekklesia didn't meet today." From his point of view, there would still have been a few dozen Christians in Thessalonica, and they would still have had many ties together in Christ and in the Spirit, but they wouldn't have been an ekklesia if they didn't actually meet.

. . . I've been exploring the meaning of the Greek word ekklesia, which is ordinarily translated as "church." This translation, however, is not necessarily the best because the English word "church" always has religious connotations, whereas ekklesia was a secular word that meant "assembly" or "gathering." When it was used in the phrase "ekklesia of God" it referred to a Christian assembly, but the religious sense came from "of God," not from ekklesia. Moreover, in the common Greek of the New Testament era, ekklesia denoted one particular kind of assembly, the gathering of citizens in a city to do civic business. In this sense, ekklesia had a meaning rather like that of the classic New England town meeting.

. . . The Christian ekklesia was meant to be an alternative society, a thumbnail sketch of the kingdom of God.

So, for example, in the ekklesia of God, Jews and Gentiles, so often separated in Roman society, shared life together as brothers and sisters. Slaves could also be full participants in the Christian gatherings, enjoying equality in Christ with non-slaves, even with their masters. Women could actively participate in the gatherings just as long as they didn't engage in the scandalous behavior of the pagan cults. The theological truth that in Christ "there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female" was lived out in the Christian assemblies (Galatians 3:28). They were, indeed, a kind of alternative society, one that implicitly rejected the domineering, separatistic, and elitist values of the Roman world.

Could it be said that the church in America today is also an alternative society? Perhaps, in some places and at some times, but I fear these are the exceptions to the rule. The church in our culture tends to play a very different role than what was once envisioned by Paul and the earliest Christians. On the one hand, we often reflect the fallen values of our society rather than the holy values of God's kingdom. For example, put a church in the middle of a materialistic culture and, odds are, the church will be materialistic too. On the other hand, we have often been satisfied to play a comfortable religious role in society, offering a spiritual narcotic to soothe jangled nerves rather than an alternative way of living under God's rule. We don't want to rock the social boat. We want to find our niche in society so that society will smile upon us. Of course there are some Christians, who, like the Amish, withdraw from society in order to live as God's chosen people. But they hardly reflect the reality of what the Christian ekklesia ought to be in the world.

. . . I need to say something about the use of ekklesia in Paul's letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians.

Curiously, neither of these letters are addressed to an ekklesia or to a group of ekklesiai as is the case in Paul's letters to Corinth (both letters), Galatia, and Thessalonica (both letters). Colossians is addressed to "the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae" (Col 1:2), while Ephesians was sent to "the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus" (Eph 1:1). The greetings at the end of Colossians reflect the sort of tangible, actual-gathering quality of ekklesia that we have seen before in Paul. He greets "Nympha and the ekklesia in her house" as well as the "ekklesia of the Laodicieans" (4:15-16).

Yet earlier in Colossians we find a different nuance of ekklesia. Let me quote several verses from the first chapter of this letter:
15 [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. (1:15-20; emphasis added)
A few verses later Paul underscores this new sense of ekklesia:

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. (1:24)

Ephesians takes this ball from Colossians and runs with it far upfield. In the first chapter, God raised and exalted Christ,
22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (1:22-23)

In Ephesians 3, God reveals His wisdom "to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" "through the church" (Eph 3:10). He concludes the chapter with a stirring benediction:

20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (3:20-21)

Then, in Ephesians 5, ekklesia shows up six times. Christ is "the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior" (5:23). The church "is subject to Christ" (5:24). Christ "loved the church and gave himself up for her" (5:25). Christ seeks "to present the church to himself in splendor" (5:27). He nourishes and tenderly cares" for the church (5:29). Finally, like the unity between husband and wife, so it is with Christ and the church, something Paul refers to as "a great mystery" (5:32).

The meaning of ekklesia in Colossians and Ephesians has clearly moved far beyond the literal gathering of Christians in some location. Now the ekklesia is the body of which Christ is the head. It appears to be some cosmic reality that transcends ordinary space and time, and that encompasses far more than a single gathering of believers. Paul seems to be envisioning some sort of "gathering," now used metaphorically rather than literally, of all Christians on earth and in heaven. This ekklesia has permanence in time like an actual body. An ekklesia in its regular meaning may come and go, but a body remains intact over time.

The relationship of the church/body in Colossians and Ephesians and the local church is not spelled out clearly.