What about the flippin’ Romans?

As we all know from the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels, Jesus was born in the Roman Empire. However, we need to remember that the Empire’s language was still Greek and they were a couple of hundred years away from being largely Latin speaking. So ekklesia was a common word in the Roman culture too. They took their understanding of the word from the Greek Empire days, but it had moved on in how it was used by the time of Jesus.

When the Romans regularly and very successfully conquered a new region they swiftly made that place entirely Roman. Anyone watching channel 4’s  popular archaeological programme, ‘Time Team’, will be well used to Tony Robinson banging on about Britain's Roman villas, Roman roads, Roman temples, Roman aqueducts etc. 

Any church leader knows that trying to change a group of people is like trying to stop an ocean going oil tanker, it takes ages! So how did the Roman’s achieve such rapid cultural changes in people groups who had been very different for many generations? The answer is the ekklesia. To the Romans this was group of specialists sent into a conquered region to alter it’s culture until it became Roman. By one means or another the Roman ekklesia would persuade the invaded nationals that they wanted everything that Rome could offer. Clearly the ‘Life of Brian’ characters hadn’t yet been fully persuaded in the oft quoted “What have the Roman’s ever done for us” scene in the Monty Python film.

A significant, but overlooked fact about the Roman ekklesia was that they were led by an apostle! The apostle was the guy sent by Rome to lead the team to change the culture. It seems that the apostle was the guy with the blueprint of what Roman culture looked like. More about this role in later blog.

Could it be then, that when Jesus used the word ekklesia, he was speaking of a people in a city that would have spiritual authority to legislate and extend his government and rule. To bring about his kingdom culture. That’s the kind of ekklesia that the gates of Hades will not over come. The governmental plans of the god of this age, being overthrown by the true authority, Jesus Christ, via his body. Now that would be flippin’ church.

And don’t forget that gates in the Bible were the places where the elders sat, governed and decided who came into and out of the city. There they judged and exercised authority.

In flesh and blood terms the ekklesia Jesus instituted, rules in a city not by might, but by serving as Jesus did, by being the people of God, the Royal Priesthood, the body of Christ. In spiritual terms it is exercised entirely militarily with the weapons which we fight with not being of this world nor against flesh and blood …

I have majored on this word ‘ekklesia’ and on Jesus’ use of it because it seems that that is more in line with how the early church saw themselves. They weren't small worshipping communities, or any kind of holy huddle. They were there to change society and early church history shows us just how brilliantly successful they were at it. Over its first 250 to 300 years the church transformed the Roman Empire and the whole known world. Twelve scared men in a upper room got filled with the Holy Spirit and, as apostles, they led the ekklesia to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. In this time we have no records of any special buildings or anything else called church. Just the ekklesia trying to work out how it should function to see the lost saved, the blind receive sight, the lame walk and captives set free. Hallelujah!

Flippin’ Living Stones

The early ekklesia clearly met and organised themselves to be the spiritual authority of the city and didn’t have buildings or even building funds (what on earth did they spend their time doing), but they were made of stones, “living stones” as Peter says in his letter:

You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1Pet 2:5

As I have studied the topic of church over my life many biblical illustration have been used to describe what the church is; the body of Christ, the royal priesthood or the bride of Christ etc. However, one that seems to be overlooked by many writers and practitioners is the church as ‘living stones’.

Just after the Falklands war, I was stationed on Ascension Island in the Atlantic just south of the equator, as part of the air bridge to keep the Falkland Islands resupplied and protected from further arial attack by the Argentineans. Our flying hours were very long and our living conditions were sparse. During our free time we either sun bathed or made things to make our life easier. Now Ascension is a volcanic island with very little vegetation, so the wood was all imported deliberately or was washed up on the beaches and so was in short supply, although we did make an awful lot of furniture from packing cases. 

One of the things we spent a whole week on was building a huge BBQ made from volcanic rocks. These rocks were the size of footballs, very heavy and had razor sharp edges due to the way the lava had flowed and cooled. Nevertheless, we built our BBQ by placing just the right stone, one upon another. This meant that we had to gather lots of rocks and grade them as to where they might fit our construction. We ended up with something which closely resembled a dry stone wall with an area to put wood on.

So why have I told you this scintillating story? Well it seems to me that whenever we talk about building churches of living stones, most attempts in history have started with a blueprint and trimmed every stone to fit a particular gap in a way that is neat and tidy. We have ended up with smart walls of similar looking stones all symmetrically fitting together. In the minds of those building there must have been ideas of splendid palaces or mansion houses. But there are two things wrong with this idea. First and most clear from scripture is that it is Jesus who builds His church and not us:

I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Mat 16:18

Jesus puts the living stones where He want them to be.

But the second implication of this is that every member of His church is a living stone and not one cut to fit a gap. Jesus’ building is much more like our Ascension Island BBQ or a dry stone wall. He places the people he has chosen where he wants them to be, one upon another, in our eyes in a seemingly random way, but actually so that a wonderful church is built. 

To us the whole thing will no doubt look very messy. We would really much prefer the building to look neat and tidy because its very much easier to control. But we were never told to practice church control. In fact scripture only allows us to control one person and that is ourselves. Paul tells the Galatians in chapter 5 verse 23 that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. We will look at how this actually works in a later blog, but just for now let me say that messy church isn’t about having the kids do finger painting during the sermon or allowing toddlers to run around the room during a service, it is living stones being put together God’s way. It is entirely different to a man made organisation where we can control staff or even volunteers. It is not top down planning where we recruit to fit a slot to make our machine work perfectly. A living stones church is about valuing each other for what God has, and has not, made us and helping one another to give and receive ministry.

So what is the flippin’ Church?

We have seen that the church is the ekklesia who were a people who changed cities, who had real authority and whom God put together as living stones. The Bible also calls the believers a body:

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Rom 12:4f

In fact Pauls first letter to the Corinthians chapter 12 is almost entirely about how this body works and later in the letter to the Ephesians in chapter 4 and 5 Paul again calls the church Christ’s body with Jesus himself as the head. When we read through these scriptures we understand that the church is a mutually supporting system with all kinds of gifts and functions where each plays a full part within their particular gift and calling. Very few Christians would disagree with this understanding of the church as a body with all kinds of equal parts, but our structures and governmental patterns consistently betray the fact that we don’t build the church this way at all and therefore struggle to be the kind of church which Jesus is building. We will look at an alternative way of seeing church later.

So far we have tried to see the church in the light of the New Testament references, but to get the subject in perspective, next time we will go on to see where the church fits with God’s plans.