Quote:
Originally Posted by YP0534
[Re: Eph 5:25, e.g.]...
Christ loves the folks YOU ARE MEETING WITH and gave Himself up for Y'ALL, in the same way He would for His own wife, His own Body.
And, yes, that's applicable, of course, to all the assemblies everywhere, too. You might even be able to say "The Assembly" in that context,
... as long as you mean those WITH you at least as much as those NOT with you.
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You'd think that at some point the disconnect should become evident, along with the concomitant utility of reassessing scripture. We began with Jesus proclaiming that the great commandment is to love one's neighbor as oneself. Everyone said, "Oh, great, now I don't have to go up to Jerusalem 5 times a year to sacrifice rams and bullocks and turtledoves. I just love my neighbor as myself. Wonderful."
Then at some point, in our desire to please our Master, we embarked on the Great Universal Church building scheme, which inevitably entailed dispatching mass quantities of our fellow humans, whether by auto-da-fe or the more recent practice of quarantine.
Then, as we stand there hip-deep in the blood of the saints, it may occur to us that we have disregarded loving the person next to us, in favor of Building the Great Universal Church in the Sky, which God seemed incapable of doing on His own.
In contrast, one alternative interpretation of the word "ekklesia" seems quite appealing. This alternate reading of the "local church", i.e. the assembly, is really the meeting, the gathering, the congregating-together of all the called-out ones.
So, we believe; we gather. Christ builds.