When a Church is not a Church, Section E

By Mark Roberts

Part 10 of series: What is a Church? Biblical Basics for Christian Community

Let me begin with a brief review. In my last few posts in this series 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.

With this review in mind, I want to ponder a bit further some implications of ekklesia for our understanding of Church.

Implications for our Understanding of Church (continued)

My last post focused on the implications of the broadest sense of ekklesia. If an ekklesia is an actual meeting of people, then a "church" exists when Christians gather together. The physical meeting of believers is essential to a right understanding of church. This stands as a critique, I suggested, of the American tendency to downplay the importance of church involvement. In our speech and practice, one can be a member of a church without showing up for the gatherings. This, however, runs against the current of the basic notion of ekklesia.

In this post I want to begin to work on the implications of the more specific meaning of ekklesia: the gathering of citizens of a particular city. Consider the following thought experiment:

Suppose I were to move to New Hampshire in order to plant a new church there. I find a small town that has only one small, lifeless church, and decide to set up shop there. This town, Athens by name, is governed, in typical New England fashion by a town meeting that gathers periodically to oversee civic affairs. I begin my ministry with a Bible study in my home. After I have about twenty regulars, I decide to offer weekly worship services in the local school gymnasium. So I pass out flyers throughout the town. They proclaim: "Come to the Town Meeting of Athens in God."

How do you think the locals would respond to the name of my church? It isn't hard to imagine their confusion, and probably their ire. "Why are you calling yourself 'the Town Meeting of Athens' when we already have one?" they would ask. "What are you suggesting about our local government? Are you planning to replace our official town meeting? Are you a subversive? Or are you merely rude? We don't need your kind around here!"

Of course we can't know for sure that the citizens of Thessalonica reacted this way when they heard about the "ekklesia of the Thessalonians in God," but it's likely they were at least confused if not a bit miffed. Surely Paul and the other early Christian church planters knew what they were getting into by calling their gatherings ekklesiai (plural of ekklesia). No doubt they realized that referring to the Christian meetings as thiasoi (religious clubs) or synagogai (assemblies, synagogues) would be less troublesome. Yet they chose ekklesiai nevertheless.

It would seem that the early Christian use of ekklesia was indeed meant to be a bit seditious, but not in the ordinary manner. The first followers of Jesus were not intending to overthrow the established ekklesia of their cities. Yet they were setting up an alternative society which, as it grew, would indeed upset the apple cart of civic life throughout the Roman Empire. The Christian ekklesia was not some little religious club off in a corner, or some innocuous gathering fit nicely into Greco-Roman society. Rather, it was a thumbnail sketch of the kingdom of God. It was a foretaste of the new creation yet to come.

Tomorrow I'll explain in more detail how this looked in the first century, and how it might look in ours.