What is the Church?
Original Word:
eÍkklhsiða
a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly - an assembly of the people convened at the public place of the council for the purpose of deliberating
- the assembly of the Israelites
- any gathering or throng of men assembled by chance, tumultuously
- in a Christian sense
- an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in a religious meeting
- a company of Christian, or of those who, hoping for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, observe their own religious rites, hold their own religious meetings, and manage their own affairs, according to regulations prescribed for the body for order's sake
- those who anywhere, in a city, village, constitute such a company and are united into one body
- the whole body of Christians scattered throughout the earth
- the assembly of faithful Christians already dead and received into heaven
In Ancient Greece the more common use of the world Ekklesia, was for an assembly of people.
In the book Pagan Christianity? the authors say this of the word:
"Strikingly, nowhere in the New Testament do we find the terms church (ekklesia) used to refer to as a building."
To the ears of a first-century Christian, calling an ekklesia (church) a building would have been like calling your wife a condominium or your mother a skyscraper!"
The first recorded use of the word ekklesia, refers to a Christian meeting place was penned around AD 190 by Cement Alexandria (150-215). Clement was also the first person to use the phrase "go to church"-which would have been a foreign thought to the first century believers. (You can not go to something you are!)
(page 11 & 12)
The authors goes on to tell us that in all of the 114 places the word Ekklesia is used in the New Testament that it always points to an assembly and that the word church was originally derived from the word kuriakon which has the meaning of, "belonging to the Lord."
In their book ReJesus Hirsch and Frost say this about the term Ekklesia.
"Most dictionaries will tell you that ecclesia literally means 'the gathering of the called-out ones'. It comes from two words, ek meaning 'out' and kaleo, meaning 'to call'. But in it's original usage an ecclesia was not just an assembly or a gathering, as many suppose. If that's all Paul wanted to convey, he could have used agora and panegyris as well as heorte, koinon, thiasos, synagoge and synago, all of which refer to an assembly.
The word ecclesia had a political aspect to it. In fact, it wasn't a religious term, and neither was its use limited to a religious gathering. In Paul's time, an ecclesia was a gathering of the elders of a community. In smaller villages and towns across Judea, local elders would gather regularly to discuss and deliberate over a variety of social and political dilemma's facing the community....
....It brought wisdom to the village. It helped the village be a better village.
... How interesting that Paul takes this term and Christianizes it for his fledgling communities. Of course, he adds to it the idea of ecclesia being a body, striving for unity and diversity."
I love this quote from the above authors, because it takes us back to the purpose of the New Testament church, to see the spread of the gospel and to radically impact their local communities for the glory of God.
How then do we so easily interchange the word to day between a body of people and a bricks and mortar place of worship?
How did the translation get lost along the way?
Was it due to the fact that when the bible was translated and printed that 'church' as the building was already firmly established 'culturally'?
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