One of the legacies of centuries of Bible translation in English is the word “church.” This word has caused more confusion about God’s interaction with his people than any other. You are probably aware that in the New Testament, “church” never referred to a building but rather to a gathering of believers. The word in Greek is ekklesia, literally “those called out.” I recently discovered a blog by Wayne Shih called ekklesia. Wayne is grappling with what it means to be the ekklesia and each month his posts are about a different subject related to that topic. This month he has been blogging on worship and I find his observations to be really thought-provoking. I encourage you to take a look.
I’m going to cut my discussion of the word ekklesia short before I start ranting, but I do want to say that when you gather with fellow believers, whether it is in your house, or in a big brick building with a steeple, you are the church. God’s spirit is in your midst. His spiritual gifts can operate in your midst!
“When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.” (1 Cor. 14:26 NIV)
Wouldn’t it be amazing if our gatherings were marked by revelation? When you gather in His name, it is possible. And Biblical. Because you are the church.
Having said that I don’t want to imply that the metaphor of “building” is not included in the word ekklesia. In fact, Jesus used a word for home building when he said “I will build my church.” But it is a metaphor and should not be taken literally (otherwise we’d need to build the church on St. Peter!).
David,
. But that’s OK. You should see what people do with my last name!
Thanks for the mention … though it’s Wayne, not William
Sorry about that, Warren (just kidding!) Error corrected. Keep up the good writing.
Surprise! My brother’s name is Warren.
Well, the Roman Catholics have literally built their main church building on St Peter, at least over his tomb. But I’m not sure if they would quite claim Matthew 16:18 as their justification for this.
We had a problem related to this in our translation project, for a group with a non-Christian majority religion. They have a word in their language glossed “church”, but what it really means is the religious buildings of those rather unpopular foreigners with their strange religion. I suppose it has similar connotations to “mosque” in English. In fact most Protestants avoid using this word for even their buildings, preferring something like “house of prayer”. The meaning overlap of the existing word with the New Testament use of ekklesia is minimal. Therefore we decided not to use this word in our translation, but instead to use one which means “community”, or sometimes where necessary for clarity a phrase “community of believers”.
What Peter says is applicable even here in NA. As pointed out, many equate church = building. Or church = gathering. That’s partly why, in the process of starting a new house church, we put on our website “AeonsEdge: A Spiritual Community.”
Having said that, I still like the word “church,” at least in the NA setting. There’s an ambiguity to “spiritual community” also. What kind of spiritual community are we? I’ve toyed with the idea of changing our site banner to read “AeonsEdge: A Church in Windsor.” In fact, if I were to move and start a new church somewhere, the name I would go with would be really simple: “A Church in ____________.”
Can I ask a dumb question? Where is NA?
In the sixteenth and (if memory serves) well into the seventeenth century, opposite sides in Reformation-connected disputes in England used to insist that “our opponents are so ignorant [of Greek and Latin], that they know not the proper meaning of the word ‘ecclesia’.”
Apparently, circa 1550, a usual meaning of “Church” in ordinary English, when not referring to a structure, was “the ordained clergy,” and it might refer particularly to the upper clergy; the faithful in general being a less evident element.
So Reformers, particularly Calvinists, and especially radical ones, liked to insist on rendering “ecclesia” as “the congregation” or “the assembly,” instead. And supporters of Episcopacy much preferred the ambiguity of the traditional reading, with its weight of associations. (And which, of course, made it much harder for their adversaries to deliver sermons “against the corrupt Church” without seeming to include their listeners in the “the congregation”!)
I note that a couple of recent dictionaries I have at hand still list “a building for worship” and “clergy or officialdom of a religious body” as the first two meanings of the English word; one assumes on lexicographic, not ideological grounds.
But the dispute is still being kept alive in some circles; see, for an example of outrage at the KJV.
Moderator note: The link in this comment was fixed (DAK)
OOPS. NA = North America