re: Point to Ponder #1: Misuse of the word “Church”

The Gospels and Epistles were not written in Hebrew nor Aramaic but in Koine Greek.

The Greek word used often is ecclesia / ekklesia which means a gathering, an assembly.

That is the word used in the New Testament to describe Christian liturgical experience.

“Individual Christians of the early Church left their respective homes on Sunday to assemble and gather in a particular prearranged place - maybe a home, maybe a synagogue, even in fields or barns to remember Christ at the Eucharist as He promised that He would be in their midst, even if the assembly were so small that only two or three were there [Matthew 18:20].

Christian assembly/ekklesia is what happens after the Christians assemble; however the place of assembly is not the Church, it is the people in whom Christ manifests His presence as He promised He would.

One can there talk of the ekklesia or church in the plural because Christians assembled in many assemblies throughout the world. One can also talk of the ekklesia or church in the singular, because wherever one went throughout the world one found the same Christ in every single assembly. The assembly in Thessalonica was the same as the assembly in Corinth because Christ was equally present in both. Christ’s presence made the different assemblies into one Assembly—one Church.

Since 33 A.D., Christians came together with the expectation of meeting Christ there. That is the whole reason for assembling.

Valuable as sermons are and uplifting as the choir sounds one mostly assembles to meet the Lord and to be fed with His Body and Blood. We go in our brokenness to be healed, and in our filthiness to be washed clean. We assemble because the only one who can heal and cleanse is there and He has promised to do both for us if we come in penitence and faith.

Finally, if we plan on assembling on Sunday we must live in anticipation of this event on the six days previous. The priest will call us to the Chalice by saying the words, “The holy things for the holy!”—or, in another possible translation, “The sanctified things for the saints!” The usual New Testament term for a believer is the word “saint” [Greek agios], which is what we are. A saint is not a sinless person, but a person who belongs to God and who is striving to please Him, whatever his or her rate of success. It is as saints that we assemble, which is why the priest uses that term.

As members of the Ekklesia and the Household of God we must strive to become what we are.”