What did Jesus mean by flippin’ ‘church’?

Now that we know how we got in a mess with this word ekklesia lets look at its use in the Bible. Jesus only uses the word ‘ekklesia’ three times in two verses, both found in Mathew’s Gospel and nearly always today translated as ‘church’:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Matt 16:18

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector Matt 18:17

Both uses of ekklesia by Jesus are in a context where authority is an important issue. In the first passage Hell will not prevail against Jesus’ ekklesia and wrong doers must be dealt with by the ekklesia in the second occurrence. I will come back to this later on, but its obviously very important that we understand what Jesus meant by ekklesia when he used this very precise word.

What we have seen so far is probably not new to many of you. The standard understanding of many free churches like the Assemblies of God, the Baptists or Congregationalists is that ‘church’ comes from ‘ekklesia’. They have alluded to the classical Greek word ‘ekklesia’ which they understood to be taken from the root of the words, ‘ek -kaleo’ which simply means to ‘call out.’ So they and many others define church as ‘the called out ones’. Of course this begs the questions, called out from what, for what or to what? The answers given would vary on that group’s view of sanctification, but would usually be along the lines ‘the church is made up of those people who belong to Jesus and are therefore called out of the world to be holy for Him’. But is that it? Is that our definition of the church? A bunch of people called by Jesus to be holy? Is that what Jesus meant when He said ‘I will build my church and the gates of hades will not prevail against it’? The real question must now be, what did Jesus understand that he meant when he used the word ekklesia three times? First of all we should note that in New Testament times, outside of the Bible references, the word ekklesia was exclusively used to represent a group of people assembled together for a particular cause or purpose. It was never used exclusively to refer to a religious meeting or group.

Its well known that ‘ekklesia’ was used as early as the 5th Century BC and was derived from ek-kaleo, which was used as the summons to the army to assemble, from kaleo, to call. Hence why many churches today go for the ‘called out’ idea of church.

In the writings of Euripides (below) and Herodotus (5th cent. BC), we get some very real clues as to the meaning of ekklesia. 

The word was more often used to denote the popular assembly of the competent full citizens of a city. The ekklesia reached its greatest importance in those times and would have met at regular intervals (in Athens about 30-40 times a year) and also in cases of emergency. Incase you’re wondering how on earth so many people could meet as the ekklesia in Athens, I should point out that very few people counted as full and competent citizens of a city. The vast majority of the populace were slaves, tradesmen, women and children, none of whom were considered sufficiently worthy to be full and competent citizens. The ekklesia in Athens comprised about 400 men and made decisions on suggested changes in the law, on appointments to official positions and on every important questions of internal and external policy (contracts, treaties, finance). Interestingly, the meeting opened with prayers and sacrifices to the gods of the city.

So centuries before the translation of the Old Testament into Greek and even longer before the time of Jesus, an ekklesia was clearly a political body, making decisions which affected the safety and prosperity of that city. It was the assembly of full citizens, rooted in the constitution of the people, an assembly in which fundamental political and legal decisions were taken. Throughout all Greek areas the ekklesia was nearly always the assembly of the city’s great and good citizens. In fact, in the whole of the Greek writing of that time there are only 3 exceptional occurrences where it is used for the business meeting of a cult.

However, there were several words which regularly occurred in Greek writings of that time which could mean religious gatherings. Often the word ‘thiasos’ was used to mean an assembly to worship a god. A word used then which Christians today may recognise was ‘koinon’, which literally means, ‘that which is in common’, but we translate as ‘fellowship’. Another word was ‘synodos’, which again we hear today as a synod of the church etc, but which then meant a group following the same way, i.e. the same teaching. Significantly, however, none of these words were chosen by the apostles to mean ‘church’ in the New Testament. A word that is used in the New Testament is ‘synagogue’ to denote a place of meeting, but again this isn't used for ‘church’. Jesus didn't say I will build my thiasos, koinon, synodos or even synagogue, but my ekklesia! This is very important.

The flippin’ context.

Lets get back to the word the bible writers did use which was ekklesia. When we study scripture we must always read the passage in context. Which is how translators sometimes come up with a particular English word in one passage but a different word elsewhere when the same Greek word is used in both.

A classic example of this would be in Acts 11:5-9. In these five verses the same Greek words ‘tou ouranou’ are translated in three different ways. This is Peter’s dream of the sheet let down through ‘tou ouranou’ among them are birds of ‘tou ouranou’ and Peter hears a voice from ‘tou ouranou’ telling him to rise and eat. In some versions in verse 5 it’s ‘the sky’, in verse 6 ‘the air’, and in verse 9 ‘heaven’. It may seem bizarre that we go for three different words. Our English sky means something different to air and different again to heaven. The consistent translation would be to always use air or atmosphere.

When Bible translators looked at how to translate ekklesia, in some passages its the context which tells us who is meeting and therefore what English word we might use. Take Acts 19, the context of the passage tells us who is meeting. Acts 19:24f records that a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made idols, called all workman of like occupation together for a meeting. The reason for the meeting was to discuss the problem that they were having with people who were being saved and who were abandoning their idols, which was ruining the silver smith’s businesses. In these three verses ekklesia is the Greek word used, but its never translated ‘church’. Lets look and see why.

Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.

Acts 19:32

But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly.

Acts 19:39

And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.

Acts 19:41

In these three verses ekklesia was used to refer to a civil assembly of the people of Ephesus which included idol makers. Remember the word ‘assembly’ is the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ and is the same word that is translated elsewhere in the New Testament as ‘church’. And just to make the point clear, not every English word ‘assembly’ is a translation of ‘ekklesia’ in our Bibles. Just four chapters later in Acts 23:7 we find ‘assembly’ is the translation of ‘plethos’ meaning a large crowd and in James 2:2 ‘assembly’ is the translation of ‘synagogue’.

We are beginning to see that an ekklesia wasn’t just any old assembly. As we have just found, there are plenty of Greek words which would have done the job. The word ekklesia carried a weight of authority in its use. Some might go so far as to say that it was a political term, but certainly not a religious term.

We have seen that in ancient Greece "ekklesia" meant an assembly of citizens summoned by the crier, who were the legislative assembly. Its very interesting to note that in Israel the legislative assembly was originally composed of the elders of each family group. The elders sat at the city gates making judgements and pronouncements and watching what came in and went out of the city. The authority in Israel was originally in the hands of the elders, they didn’t usually gather together to overthrow the corrupt government, because, in a sense,  they were the government. However, once Israel asked God for a king, who in turn appointed officials over the people, the role of the elders changed to be very similar to the Greek ekklesia.

But just because we have worked out what a word might have meant in its early usage doesn't mean that that is what Jesus and the apostles understood by its meaning a few hundred years later. We must ask ourselves if the context of their use of ekklesia fits with the theory. So lets go back to the three times Jesus uses ekklesia in Matt 16:18-20 and 18:15-20. Clearly these passages are about authority being exercised, firstly against Satan and then in the second instance with man. It makes every sense to see that Jesus did indeed think of ekklesia as a legislative authority of some sort.

Next time I want to take a quick look at what the Romans made of ekklesia in the time of Jesus.