Ekklesia - The use of the Greek word

The 'ekklesia' included everybody. In the days of ancient Athens, the ekklesia was when all the citizens were called together. Any citizen must come. When there were national decisions to be taken, war to be declared, magistrates to be elected, all were expected to take part. Everybody had a voice, it was an assembly of equals. In the Greek world before Christ, the word came to mean any assembly of citizens duly convened - it was a solemn occasion, and the Greek gods were set up in place to dignify the meeting.

Ekklesia was the word used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word qahal, which is an assembly of the people summoned by God. It was a qahal when they were summoned to Horeb, that time when they were terrified of the voice of God (Deuteronomy 16.18). It was an enormous qahal when the people in their hundreds assembled to the Lord as one man at Mizpah, the purpose to punish the Benjamites for their atrocity (Judges 20.2). King Solomon blessed all the assembly of Israel who were summoned to the consecration of the newly completed temple (1 Kings 8.14). The qahal (ekklesia) implies God's people being called together by God, in order to listen to Him or act for Him. The ekklesia was not a selected company, it included everybody whom God was calling.

And so in the New Testament ekklesia is the Greek word for the church. It is a body of people 'not so much assembling because they have chosen to come together, but assembling because God has called them to himself' (Barclay). They do not meet to share their own opinions, they meet to hear the voice of God.

The 'church' is a general term, which includes all believers. In 1 Corinthians 10.32 Paul speaks of not upsetting Jews, who were people with their own beliefs and traditions scattered all over the world, or Greeks likewise — or the church of God. It is in the church, speaking widely, that God appointed apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in tongues (1 Corinthians 12.28). It was the church, generally, that Paul persecuted (Philippians 3.6)

But there were also local churches. At Cenchreae the church had Phoebe for a deaconess (Romans 16.1) and Paul commended her. Paul also speaks of the church, of God, at Corinth (1 Corinthians 1.2) who are called to be saints, as well as those in every other place who called on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Galatia there were a number of local churches to whom Paul addressed his letter (Galatians 1.2).

Each local company of believers meeting together constituted a church (1 Corinthians 11.18). Sometimes the results of the meeting were unfortunate, in this particular case arguments, divisions, drunkenness. Meeting 'in church', in the assembly, was a responsibility, in particular a responsibility to say things that people could understand. Five words understood were better than 10,000 words not understood (1 Corinthians 14.18). Everything should be done 'decently and in order' (v.40).

All the little local meetings of believers called by God were part of the whole wide ekklesia. And wherever there are separate groups of believers, separated for whatever reason, each believer belongs to the ekklesia of God which is all-inclusive.

What does the church consist of? It is composed of people. Nowhere in scripture does church mean a building. But it is not just people, it comes from God and belongs to Him. And Christ is the Head of the church (Ephesians 5.23,4), so we are, or should be, under his control. 'It ought to be according to the mind and thought and will of Christ that the whole ekklesia lives and moves.' The ekklesia in fact acts as Christ's body (Colossians 1.24). It is through us that He is seen - what a challenge!

Even our homes can be the place of a house-church (Romans 16.5; Colossians 4.15; Philemon 2). Prisca and Aquila, Nympha, Philemon were New Testament examples of ones whose homes were consecrated in daily life and became meeting places into which God called them. They were one little part of His grand ekklesia.