Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Rasputin, then could we say that those naughty ones in Columbus and Mansfield, who disrupted meetings and became nearly an unruly impromptu mob to the point of calling 911, were just a local "ekklesia" in the truest sense of the word?
Very interesting!
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Ohio:
The nearest concept to \ekklesia\ that we have in ordinary American English is "town hall meeting." (The assemblies of the believers are different, of course, but this is the starting point of the definition.)
I don't know about politics in your part of the world but those assemblies are likely to descend into unruliness at times because of all the different opinions.
We shouldn't just hide the different opinions (old way) or try to "blend" them away somehow (new way). We need to go on together in Him in brotherly love despite the differing opinions and earnestly exercise to remain in the true oneness, i.e. being dilligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
For some reason, this scene reminds me of the relationships in the village in Fiddler on the Roof. The whole town could be tossed into an uproar by a single statement yet they always remained tightly bound together as a community by their common heritage.
I would suggest that among the assemblies of the Lord Jesus, we don't have a tradition of either behaving so as to require involvement of the secular authority nor of usurping the Lord's Headship by involving it when not required. Either seems fairly obviously to be more fleshly than ought to ever be displayed in the meetings!
But I wasn't there that day so I don't really know what happened.