Re: "Church" is not in the Bible!

awareness · 10-20-2019, 04:29 AM

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Originally Posted by Untohim

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Firstly, hopefully with Aron's blessing, I'd like to copy his response to Sons to Glory from the thread with the same name on the open forum.

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Originally Posted by Sons to Glory

... just translate ekklesia into a directly corresponding word, which would be "assembly" or "congregation"?

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Originally Posted by aron

Not sure you can do that. The word may have been "morphing" even as it was being used. Like the early meaning was "a meeting" or "any group or collection of people". But by the end of the NT, it had a new meaning. Like, you know, The Church... a standing body with some emerging organizational structures, which transcended actual gatherings.

Think of a word like, "the way", meaning a path or route. But in the NT, the Way meant being a disciple of Jesus and following all his commands or something like that. It took on new meaning to a certain in-group.

Or White House.... if someone in 1244 France said, "I'm going to the white house" that meant nearby there was a house painted white. But in 1944 Iowa, if someone said, "I'm going to the White House" it meant they were going to Washington DC to meet with the President of the USA.

So we shouldn't transpose our meanings, or what we (naively, and hopefully) think were their meanings, upon others' words. The truth is, we simply don't know. So "church" shouldn't be waved away like it is some make-believe word. It has a history. It may have actual connection with initial usage. Maybe not what some think it did, but still, connection nonetheless. The problem with Church History as we practice it, is we always want to go back to the Year One, where everything was so clear and pure. But maybe it wasn't. Maybe there were multiple ideas floating around, even then. Or, things we think should be fixed by convention, were morphing due to new conventions coming on board.

Look at the loaded words "normal" and "proper" and "genuine" as used by Nee and Lee. They railroaded us with their concepts that matched those words in their heads. But there's no guarantee that what was normal to Nee in 1932 China was normal to John in 62 AD Judea. And, history occurred for a reason. We shouldn't just blithely wave it away and pretend we can go back to the Early Church days. We are here, now, for a reason.