Scott1 said in the Opening Post: "The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose. Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people. By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. The equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means "what belongs to the Lord."(CCC #751)
What does "church" mean to you/your faith?
Local? Universal? Both? Neither? “
I very much like Scott1s' connection of the noun ekklesia to the great cosmic process of gathering. Regarding as to whether this process is “Local”, or “universal” I think it is happening on several scales, both the local and a universal scale, both temporally and in the scale of eons. Obviously the word "synagogue" (συναγωγη) is a synonym of this same converging or a drawing together, a gathering.
The early concept of the process of nurturing, improving, and finally gathering (assemblying) the firstfruits of all things was seen as part of God’s cosmic plan in the beginning. For example, when New Testament Hermas, the angel explains the vision of the ekklesia as an elderly woman. ”… who is she?” I said. “The Church” he replied. I said to him “Why, then, is she elderly?” “Because,” he said, “she was created before all things; therefore she is elderly, and for her sake the world was formed.” Hermas 8:1.
The concept that this gathering and assembling of the firstfruits of all creation was the plan from the beginning clarifies somewhat what is happening inside mortality.
Ekklesia as the gathering of those who answer the ongoing call (or invitation) to leave the world and gather to toward higher moral principles
The early concept of gathering included both nurturing and improving (repentance) as one basis for deciding what is to be gathered and what is not to be gathered. Jesus did “not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance…” Matt 9:13
The concept of inviting and gathering is woven into much of the Symbology of the early texts.
…those servants went out into the highways and gathered (συναγογον) together as many as they found, both bad and good… (Matt 22:10)
…how often would I have gathered (επισυναγαγειν) thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. (Matt 23:37)
However, those that do gather and repent are what he keeps. Thus the concept that “…. he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up...” Matt 3:12
The concept of the gathering of individuals unto Jesus and gospel standard was to continue after his death, thus, even after his death the disciples spake “…concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, …” 2 Thess 2:1 and the separation out of the world and the process of gathering into the ekklesia (assembly) was to continue into the latest ages when one like the son of man is told to “…Thrust in thy sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth and threw it into the great winepress…” Rev 14:18
I view this word ekklesia, in its’ most broadest religious contextual sense as representing individuals who are accepting the invitation God extends to all individuals toward faith and moral/social progression in all of it's forms.
In the narrower Christian context I believe it represents those who are in the process of accepting the more narrow invitation God, at some point, extends to all individuals toward faith in Jesus Christ and in the invitation to adopt and master moral and social laws Jesus wants us to live that will prepare one for a social heaven.
I do not think one needs to have a perfectly correct understanding of any doctrine in order to be part of those who are in the process of assembling and learning what it is that Jesus expects of them and then learning to do what Jesus expects of them. The Εκκλησια, as I view it, involves an eternal “process” of planting and gathering “good fruit” who respond to the invitation towards moral/social “improvement”.
Clement tell is that “the Books and the Apostles declare that the church not only exists now, but has been in existence from the beginning. For she was spiritual, as was also our Jesus, but was revealed in the last days in order that she might save us. Now the church being spiritual, was revealed in the flesh of Christ, thereby showing us that if any of us guard her in the flesh and do not corrupt her, he will receive her back again in the Holy Spirit. For this flesh is a copy of the spirit. No one, therefore, who corrupts the copy will share in the original” 2nd Clement 14:3;
Just as the ekklesia existed before the world was created in this early Christian theology, that is, “ …she was created before all things.” Hermas 8:1, the same assembling of firstfuits is happening during mortality and it will continue after mortality when those “who have come to mount zion and to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem) and to the innummerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly (ekklesia) and assembly of the firstfruit who are enrolled in [the] heavens…”
This is simply a base model for me as to the scope and vision of what it is that God is "gathering" and assembling, and I am very willing and wanting to modify it as I find better data.
Clear
ειακειακω
