Use of the word "Church" in Scripture

[KC02]

This is how I see it, for what it's worth:

When Paul used the word ekklesia, he had in mind the assembly that gathered at Mt Sinai. It's just an assembly that worshiped God and that God would be present in... a covenant people.

I'm certain that Paul never considered an all gentile church. There is something absurd about such a thought.

While initially all Jewish, the assembly was opened up to include anyone who would repent of their sins and believe in Jesus. I consider myself apart of that assembly that is under a covenant relationship with God. I don't see a dichotomy between the church and the original assembly despite being under a new covenant.

I have no qualms disagreeing with theologians either, especially when their claims hang by a hair as in this case.

[Botz]

I was considering that the word 'ekklesia' like so many other words of an 'inter-changeable nature' was substantiated by the context in which it was used...therefore it can mean just a 'crowd' or a 'gathering', but it can also refer to the 'Church' eg... all those that are saved, both Jew and Gentile. Thus the sentence in which it is used determines how specific its reference, and what it is related to.

[Guest yod]

I was considering that the word 'ekklesia' like so many other words of an 'inter-changeable nature' was substantiated by the context in which it was used...therefore it can mean just a 'crowd' or a 'gathering', but it can also refer to the 'Church' eg... all those that are saved, both Jew and Gentile. Thus the sentence in which it is used determines how specific its reference, and what it is related to.

Yes, but it's still not an accurate rendering of the words God chose to use in the scriptures. Doesn't that matter?

Would it be kosher to change every place the Bible says "Passover" into now reading as "Easter"?

The interpreter(s) inserted something that wasn't in the original language and it causes people to see something that didn't (and doesn't) exist in the scriptures. Namely "a specifically christian religious institution separate from Israel".

Think about this: Why didn't they translate "sunagoge" as "Synagogue" instead of "church"? That would be more accurate...yet still not really accurate because of the way "Synagogue" has changed definition over the years (now meaning a specifically jewish religious place of gathering)

Whatever your answer is to that question, it would be the same reason why these words shouldn't be translated as "church". They have no religious connotation whatsoever and should be translated neutrally.

This one "little" error has people seeing things that aren't there and missing things right in front of them for centuries now.

[lekh l'kha]

I'm sorry, yod, I didn't know you were a theologian. Which Divinity School did you go to?

Man, have them theologians that have come out of Divinity Schools made huge errors throughout the centuries. Thank God that with the exception of Paul, the Lord never chose educated people to spread His gospel.

Parker1, I really think that you aren't understanding the principle that Yod is trying to show here:

What I think he's trying to show is that the substitution of the word 'church' for a word which always simply means an assembly , has caused the idea to develop over time (in the minds of many, many Gentiles who believe in Jesus) that the assembly of those who believe in Jesus has nothing to with Israel.

Yet we have everything to do with Israel - because we have become the seed of Abraham by being grafted into Israel among the believing remnant of Abraham's natural descendants (Rom.11: 17).

God's everlasting election of the seed of Abraham is contained in an oath-covenant which God made with an ethnic nation a.k.a Israel - the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel).

Paul teaches that the majority of the ethnic seed of Abraham are broken off (UNTIL the fullness of the Gentiles be come in), and only a remnant has remained, and that it is among this remnant of ethnic Israel that the Gentiles find themselves when we become grafted into Israel among them (Rom.11: 1-5).

The assembly ("the church") is made up of the remnant of believing Israel + the Gentiles who have been joined to the remnant.

But the word "church" + the theology of many, many educated theologians has brought about the situation we now find ourselves in - the fact that the word "church" has come to mean (in the minds of many Christians) an institution that has nothing to do with Israel.

I also think it would be much clearer in the translations of the N.T if the Greek word "ekklesia" was simply translated as "assembly" (which is what it means), instead of as "church", which is a word with a pagan root, as Yod pointed out.

I think that this is what Yod is trying to show (please tell me if I'm wrong, Yod).

Lekh

[nebula]

Parker -

The point is the word "church" is a bad translation for the word ekklesia.

The word "church" comes from a word that means or refers to a religious meeting place or "the lord's house".

It does not, nor should not, refer to the people, the body of believers - which is what it does in our translations.

That's the bottom line point.

Jesus came to build and "assembly", not a meeting place.

The point Yod is addressing arises from this. By translating ekklesis as "church" rather than "assembly" or "congregation", it has changed the meaning of the word.

Where Jesus was thinking "My people," the modern English reader thinks "My organization."

And that "organization" is a separate tree from the Covenant of Israel.

Paul refers to Jews who come to faith in Jesus Messiah as being grafted into "their own tree"; yet the standard Christian perspective is that they are grafted into a new tree rather than the old one.

See the difference?

Edited December 22, 2009 by nebula

[Guest yod]

I'm sorry, yod, I didn't know you were a theologian. Which Divinity School did you go to?

The point is that you seem to think only a trained theologian can understand the Word. One doesn't have to be at a school to study.

And unfortunately for many centuries now, seminaries are the very places where the greek spirit (including this error) is continually being propogated. Not all of them, of course, but I'd say most....

[Guest shiloh357]

Part of the problem is that in our day and age, "Church" has become equivalent with "Gentiles" and "Israel" has become equivalent with "the Jews."

The key, I believe is in Paul's Olive Tree metaphor. In that metaphor, Torah-observant Jews (both believing and unbelieving) and believing Gentiles comprise three subsets of Israel.

The problem is that as with some of Paul's other metaphors, this one has also been stood on its head and interpreted in reverse of what Paul intended. Paul's point is that unbelieving Jews are broken off from the tree but are grafted in when they receive the Messiah along side Gentiles believers from a foreign (wild) olive tree are grafted into the cultivated tree.

The confusion begins when we seeing "the church" as an institution that exists outside of Israel. The New Testament community of believers is a distinct congregation WITHIN Israel that one can only be a part of through salvation, but it is not a separate organization apart FROM Israel.

Seeing the Church as separate from Israel causes the "grafted in passages to make no sense. If the Church supplants Israel (the natural olive tree), how can anyone be grafted into it?? If "the church" supplants Israel, then the Gentiles have nothing to be grafted into at all. Rather, it would be the Jews who need to be "grafted" into the church. But that is not how Paul's metaphor works.

[Rick-Parker]

What I think he's trying to show is that the substitution of the word 'church' for a word which always simply means an assembly , has caused the idea to develop over time (in the minds of many, many Gentiles who believe in Jesus) that the assembly of those who believe in Jesus has nothing to with Israel.

Lekh

And I disagree.

[Rick-Parker]

I'm sorry, yod, I didn't know you were a theologian. Which Divinity School did you go to?

The point is that you seem to think only a trained theologian can understand the Word.

And I disagree. You don't know me at all. I'm saying that no one knows that the use of the word "church" is an ERROR as is being put forward here. It's all words, no proof besides another human being's interpretation of one word to another.

[Rick-Parker]

Part of the problem is that in our day and age, "Church" has become equivalent with "Gentiles" and "Israel" has become equivalent with "the Jews."

The key, I believe is in Paul's Olive Tree metaphor. In that metaphor, Torah-observant Jews (both believing and unbelieving) and believing Gentiles comprise three subsets of Israel.

The problem is that as with some of Paul's other metaphors, this one has also been stood on its head and interpreted in reverse of what Paul intended. Paul's point is that unbelieving Jews are broken off from the tree but are grafted in when they receive the Messiah along side Gentiles believers from a foreign (wild) olive tree are grafted into the cultivated tree.

The confusion begins when we seeing "the church" as an institution that exists outside of Israel. The New Testament community of believers is a distinct congregation WITHIN Israel that one can only be a part of through salvation, but it is not a separate organization apart FROM Israel.

Seeing the Church as separate from Israel causes the "grafted in passages to make no sense. If the Church supplants Israel (the natural olive tree), how can anyone be grafted into it?? If "the church" supplants Israel, then the Gentiles have nothing to be grafted into at all. Rather, it would be the Jews who need to be "grafted" into the church. But that is not how Paul's metaphor works.

And this is what I agree with. Not that the word "church" used in Scripture is a purposeful ERROR to separate Jew from Gentile, as yod is some are saying.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Parker1