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Even
if the English language existed in the first century and was
understood by the early Christians, it is unlikely that
church
would
have meant anything to them. The word they chose to describe the
community of disciples that followed Jesus of Nazareth was
ekklesia.
Jesus
himself, who we may presume spoke only Aramaic and Hebrew, probably
never used the Greek word
ekklesia,
not
even when he said “Upon this rock I will build my church”
(Matt. 16:18). But when the apostles recorded the few instances that
Jesus referred to the church, they translated the Aramaic word he
used into the word
ekklesia.
And
so it is throughout the New Testament, for over 100 times the
believers are referred to as
ekklesia.
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What
is confusing is that the English word
church
is
not derived from the Greek
ekklesia,
but
from another Greek word,
kuriakon,
which
means “belonging to the lord” and rarely occurs in the
New Testament. A dictionary will reveal to you that
church
is
derived from the old Scottish term
kirk,
which
in turn had its origin in the Greek word
kuriakon.
Originally
kirk
had
no ecclesiastical import, for it came out of Britain’s feudal
society in the Middle Ages and referred to the manor (estate) over
which the landlord ruled. So the “kirk” was that which
belonged to the lord. The serfs were his subjects and he ruled over
them as lord and even judge, holding court in case of disputes.
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The
“lord of the manor” thus had his
kirk
or
church,
which
was his estate or little nation, and it had nothing to do with
religion. The law of primogeniture, now repealed, ruled that the
estate passed along to the eldest son, who succeeded his father as
lord of the manor and head of the kirk. Other sons were left out, so
they had to seek other opportunities befitting “the landed
gentry,” such as marrying a rich woman. This is why some of
them followed Columbus to America. They hoped to establish the
feudal system in America. These disappointed sons, who were born in
the wrong order, hoped to have their own “church” in
America! But you now see that this referred to a manor and not to
anything religious.
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And
this was when the King James Bible was translated (1611), named for
King James I of England, as was Jamestown (1607), the first English
colony in America.
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Somehow
(It doesn’t make much sense even in the light of the foregoing
facts) the kings’s translators chose the word “church”
or “kirk” for
ekklesia.
Since
church
meant
“belonging to the lord,” it seemed appropriate to them
to use that term in reference to those who belonged to Jesus, whom
they called Lord, and thus became his community.
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If
the king’s translator were looking at the Greek word
kuriakon,
which
means “belonging to the lord,” instead of
ekklesia,
which
means something else, the choice of
church
would
have been more justified. The word
kuriakon
occurs
in Rev. 1:10 (“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”)
and 1 Cor. 11:20 (“the Lord’s supper”). These
refer to the table and to the day that “belongs to the Lord.”
So, if Matt. 16:18 had read “Upon this rock I will build my
kuriakon”
the
KJV translators could have seen it as referring to the people who
“belong to the Lord,” like
day
and
supper
in
the other passages and thus used
church.
But
the term in Mt. 16:18 is
ekklesia,
a
much different word. So you can see the basis of the confusion.
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Translators
before and after the KJV have sought to capture the meaning of
ekklesia,
which
in essence is “assembly,” avoiding the term
church.
Luther
chose
congregation,
as
did Alexander Campbell, which makes Mt. 16:18 read “Upon this
rock I will build my congregation.” When Hugh J. Schonfield,
that dynamic Jewish scholar, translated the New Testament from the
Greek, which he called
The
Authentic New Testament,
he
not only translated baptism as immersion but rendered
ekklesia
as
community.
Thus
1 Cor. 1:2 reads: “to the community of God at Corinth.”
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These
terms,
congregation
or
community,
get
as close to what
ekklesia
means
in English as any term that could be selected, unless it is
assembly.
Those
old Greek scholars who created the Septuagint (the OT in Greek) used
the word
ekklesia
to
translate the Hebrew,
qahal,
which
is the main word for “assembly” in the Old Testament.
This means that when they came to Neh. 8:2, which reads “Ezra
the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women
and all who could hear with understanding,” they made it read
in Greek that Ezra brought the law before the
ekklesia.
So
with Ps. 22:22, where the Septuagint has David saying “In the
midst of the
ekklesia
I
will praise thee.”
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This
OT usage gives us a clue that
ekklesia
means
both an
assembly
and
assembling.
The
ekklesia
is
God’s assembly even when the covenant people are scattered
over a city, but the term implies that the assembly of God assembles
in the name of God. Thus the community of God at Corinth was God’s
assembly even when separated into scores of homes, but the word
implies that said community assembled from time to time.
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The
etymology of
ekklesia
is
that it is made up of two words meaning “called out,”
and we often define
church
to
mean this, i. e., the called-out from the world. But it is not
likely that the NT writers meant this when they used the term. They
more likely meant an assembly (of Christ) that assembles (in the
name of Christ). Since the Greeks used the term politically,
referring to any political entity that is called together or
otherwise assembles, it was necessary for the Christians, when they
used
ekklesia
to
add the relational case
of
Christ
or
of
God.
Even
in the NT
ekklesia
is
used strictly politically. In Acts 19 the word occurs three times,
referring to the mob that heard Paul in Ephesus. Verse 32 reveals
that “the assembly (ekklesia) was in confusion.” Verse
39 refers to Demetrius assuring them that matters can be settled in
“the regular assembly”
(ekklesia).
Then
verse 41 tells how he “dismissed the assembly,”
ekklesia
again.
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The
early Christians might have chosen a religious term, such as
synagogue,
to
refer to the community of Jesus, and this term was sometimes used,
as in James 5:2 where the Christian assembly is called a synagogue.
But when the same writer tells the sick man to call for the elders
of the church he uses
ekklesia.
It
is remarkable that the apostles, moved by the Holy Spirit, would
reach out into Greek culture and choose a secular term to describe
God’s special people. But we are not to forget the influence
of the Septuagint, with which Jesus and his apostles were
acquainted, which had long since selected
ekklesia
as
the equivalent of the “assembly of God” in the Old
Testament.
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To
check ourselves to see where we may be at this point in our study we
might suppose ourselves to never use the word
church
again
or even to think in terms of
church.
For
the moment let us think of “the communities of Christ salute
you,” “I take it to mean Christ and the assembly,”
and “feed the congregation of the Lord which he purchased with
his own blood. “ You no longer go to church, but to the
assembly; you are no longer raised in the “Church of Christ”
but were raised in the community of Christ. The elders no longer run
the church but they run Christ’s assembly. You didn’t
“join the church” but you joined the assembly. People
are no longer told to go to the church of their choice but to the
community of their choice.
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There
is a difference, isn’t there? I tried this out on my dear
Ouida and she concluded that
church
is
more formal, more institutional, more organizational, more
impersonal. We even speak of folk being “churched,” but
how would you say this in terms of the church as community. Severe
terminology like “disfellowshipped” seems to fit with
church, but not with assembly. There are “church fusses”
and “church splits” and “their church and our
church,” but these notions do not transfer very well into
community or congregation.
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How
does “under the oversight of the elders of the community”
sound? It is much easier to have an hierarchy of authority in the
Church of Christ than it is in Christ’s community. It makes
sense to refer to the pope of the Roman Catholic Church, but we
smile at the notion of a pope over the assembly of Jesus Christ.
Then there are ordinances of the church, doctrines of the church,
officers of the church, and then “church schools” and
“church papers.” And on and on.
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It
is easy to think organization when we read “Upon this rock I
will build my church,” but more difficult when we hear Jesus
say he will call to himself an assembly or a community. And I am
persuaded that “the churches of Christ salute you” does
not mean the same to us as “the assemblies of Christ salute
you.” We would be uneasy over changing our signs from
Christian
Church
or
Church
of Christ
to
simply
A
Congregation of Christians
or
A
Community of Jesus Christ.
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It
is also easier to undemocratize a church where there is an
“authority” mentality than an assembly of equals. And
there are grounds for supposing that
ekklesia,
coming
out of Greek culture that gave birth to democracy, implies a
democratic assembly. When Demetrius told the confused mob at Ephesus
that their problems could be discussed in “the regular
ekklesia” (Acts 19:39), he did not mean that the decisions
would be made by some perpetuating board of elders or corporate
executives that give account to no one, but that the questions would
be discussed by all who cared to participate in a democratic way.
When the Greek
ekklesia
had
an election everyone had a vote!
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The
assembly of Christ certainly has its leaders, even its “elders
and deacons,” but these are leaders among equals and not
officers who lord it over others —“not as domineering
over those in your charge but being examples to the flock” (1
Pet. 5:3).
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The
early disciples thought of themselves more as “a little flock”
than as a church. This is what Jesus called them —“Fear
not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to
give you the kingdom” (Lk. 12:32). Jesus was their shepherd.
This is different from being the church and looking to Jesus as head
of the church. Jesus never referred to what we call
church,
and
even
ekklesia
is
referred to but three times in all four gospel records.
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And
they thought of themselves as God’s people in Christ, as God’s
elect, as a chosen race, as a spiritual house, and especially (in
Paul at least) as the Body of Christ. There is no “invisible”
Body of Christ and no “triumphant” ekklesia. Jesus’
community is real and visible, whether in heaven or on earth, and it
is always “militant” and not yet “triumphant”
in that it never ceases to fight the good fight of faith. Nor is the
universal community of Christ the sum total of all the
congregations, but rather each assembly is a manifestation of the
whole body of Christ.
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And
yet it is all a divine mystery. “This is a great mystery,”
says the apostle, “Christ and the assembly.” It is a
relationship of “in Christ” or “Christ in you, the
hope of glory.” And that is what the community of Christ is, a
blessed and beautiful mystery. It is just as well that we can’t
say the same for “the church.”
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These
conclusions do not mean that we should not use the term church, but
they might mean that we should use the term less and the more
meaningful terms more. And when we do refer to the community of
Christ as
church
we
can do so with more understanding of what the ekklesia of Christ
really meant to those who first used that description. —the
Editor