CHURCH 18 – Church ‘Ecclesia’ in the New Testament

CHURCH 18 - Church 'Ecclesia' in the New Testament

Word Definition “church”                G1577 ‘ecclesia’                    115x in the New Testament

Strong’s Definition: a calling out, a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation (Jewish synagogue, or Christian community of members), assembly, church. Also commonly used for gathering of citizens. It is not originally a Christian term.

Total listing of occurrences
  • Acts      2:47, 5:11; 7:38; 8:1,3; 9:31; 11:22,26; 12:1,5; 13:1; 14:23,27; 15:3,4,22,41; 16:5; 18:22; 19:32,39,41; 20:17,28
  • Rom     16:1,4,5,16,23;
  • 1 Cor    1:2; 4:17; 6:4; 7:17, 10:32; 11:16,18,22; 12:28; 14:4,5,12,19,23, 28,33,34,35; 15:9; 16:1,19
  • 2 Cor    1:1; 8:1,18,19,23,24; 11:8,28; 12:13
  • Gal       1:2,13,22.
  • Eph      1:22; 3:10,21; 5:23,24,25,27, 29,32.
  • Php      3:6; 4:15.
  • Col       1:18,24; 4:15,16.
  • 1 The   1:1; 2:14.
  • 2 The   1:1,4.
  • 1 Tim   3:5,15; 5:16.
  • Phm     2
  • Heb      2:12; 12:23
  • Jam     5:14.
  • 3 Jhn   1:6,9,10
  • Rev      1:4,11,20; 2:1,7,8,11,12,17,18, 23,29; 3:1,6,7,13,14,22; 22:16
Importance and meaning of the word ‘ecclesia’

Mth 16:16-18                     Jesus building church on the rock, on Peter

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church (ecclesia), and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

  • This passage is the basis for the Catholic idea of a God-ordained leadership of the church from Peter onward.
  • Others interpret differently: what Christ will build his church on is not so much Peter himself (Petros), but the confession he spoke (you are the Christ!), which will be the foundation stone or rock (Petra) on which the church is indeed built.

Mth 18:15-7                      Reproving a member for sin

If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone, if the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even tot he church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

  • Is this an anachronism since Jesus says this at a moment in time where the church is not yet founded? Or prophetic? Or referring to normal Jewish synagogue meetings? Or are here words commonly used later put into Jesus’ mouth by Matthew?
  • G4864 ‘sunagoge’ is the word for describing Jewish meeting places, the ‘synagogue’ (57x), which is consistently not used for the assemblies of the first church, or at least not by the time the New Testament is written. It refers exclusively to the meeting place of the Jews, in Judea, Galilee and the diaspora.
  • Paul and others go to preach there, but not to ‘have fellowship with believers’. For that the word used is ‘ecclesia’.
  • Why would God use a different word to describe the church assemblies, not the familiar term ‘synagogue’? Kick out the new faith from overly Jewish connotations?
  • The term ‘Christians’ appears rather late, in Acts 11:26. Maybe ecclesia is beginning to be used frequently as they move out into the Hellenistic Jewish world and the Gentile world in general?
  • The term ‘ecclesia’ is used 115x in the NT, uniformly and uniquely for the church. Only rarely it is used for a political gathering like in Acts 19:32 for the rioting assembly in Ephesus.
  • The church is not a formalized group of people, but relationship based.

1 Cor 7:17         ‘my rule in all the churches … command’ > some rules do exist.
Eph 5:23           ‘Christ is the head (leadership / source) of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.’
Col 1:18            ‘He is the head of the body, the church’
Col 2:9-10         ‘For in him the whole witness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every rulers and authority’
Col 2:19            ‘and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished & held together by its ligaments & sinews, grows with a growth from God’
Eph 1:22-23     ‘And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things, for the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all’
Eph 4:15-16     ‘But speaking the truth in love, me must grow up in every way into him who is the head unto Christ 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.’

  • There is a significant transition of the spiritual leadership in the Old Testament (highly structured) to the spiritual leadership in the New Testament (only mildly structured). Also the observance, rituals, ceremonies were far more defined in the Old Testament (especially sacrifices).
  • Jesus (not God in general) is the head of the church, the church is the body. Jesus is the bridegroom, the church is the bride. The church is a body with many organs with different functions but working together … all the metaphors are living, organic, relational metaphors, not structural, rigid, organizational metaphors.
  • Why was the religious domain in the Old Testament more structured than in the New? Maybe because the Old Testament was a picture, whereas the New Testament is the real thing, the fulfillment. Since the Old Testament was only a picture, it needed to be more strongly drawn. But once the real thing, the original comes, there is no longer a need for rigidity. Because believers didn’t have the Holy Spirit in them in the Old Testament, there was a higher need for clarity or rigidity.
  • Over the centuries we have again introduced much rigidity into the church: conditional membership, top-down leadership, often excluding even other believers.
  • The problem is not so much with the church having different denominational expressions, but with our judgmental attitude, pride, exclusivity and superiority.
CHURCH