Confusing Church (Part 1)

Just before publishing this post, I asked Mother Google to show me any images she could find using the keyword “church”.  In under a quarter of a second, she got back to me to say that she could find about 2,510,000,000 images.  I skimmed through the first 13 pages (around 400 images).  Can you guess what I found?   I found three pictures that were not of (or about) buildings.

One showed people sitting in rows with a preacher in a pulpit:

The second was a photograph of a small group of people poring over a printed building plan or blue-print.  The third picture was this image – and my heart was encouraged:

One of the things that has concerned me for some time now – and occupied a lot of my thinking, study, research and writing time – is a serious confusion in much writing, teaching and preaching around the subject of ‘church’.

I read a lot of material – from web logs and other internet-based material, to monographs by reputable authors, to theology texts and theological articles, to writers coming from different angles on the subjects of ‘simple church’, ‘emerging church, ‘missional church’ and so forth.  I have been reading widely since the days when authors like John Stott, J I Packer, John White, David Watson and the like were in their prime.

Furthermore, I am sometimes asked if I can recommend books, journals or web-based material for someone wanting to find and read high quality material that is not simply a regurgitation or rehash of some earlier material.  I do in fact have what I consider to be a reasonable list of writers/publishers of quality material – especially on the subject of ‘church’

There are a couple of web-based publishers that I think stand out as beacons among the many thousands of these sites on-line.  Three of my top five would be [www.jesuslifetogether.com]; [www.unveiling.org]; [www.voiceofonecrying.com].

And in terms of current authors of monographs available in bookstores, my top five would be Frank Viola, Paul Vieira, Neil Cole, Floyd McClung and Greg Boyd – not necessarily in that order.

I consider this material the ‘cream of the cream’.  However, no matter how much I read or how much I wish it were otherwise, most – not all – carry this one pivotal confusion.  I could quote from any number of the sources I have mentioned to demonstrate my point.  I have chosen the following paragraph from DO I HAVE TO "GO TO CHURCH?".  Again I stress – similar words and ideas could be extracted from most of the material I have referred to.

“It’s essential that you see the connection between loving God and loving His Body. Don’t pompously think that you love God, but loving His Body is secondary in importance. “I can be a Christian, but I don’t need the church.” Wrong. Because God in His infinite wisdom said that Jesus Christ is the head of His Body, and IN His Body He has chosen to invest HIS SON as “the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.” COULD there be someone who says they love Jesus, but wouldn’t want THAT?! Unless you are a daily part of a local body of true Heaven-Born Believers, a Lampstand (not simply an “attendance-based” clergy-laity organization), you are missing SO much, for yourself and your family. A REAL Church is to be a daily Christ-honoring, Christ-centered, Bible-believing people who are walking in obedience to God—not just talking about it.”

DO I HAVE TO "GO TO CHURCH"?

www.JesusLifeTogether.com

Copyright © 2003 realpeople@JesusLifeTogether.com
P.O. Box 68309, Indianapolis, IN 46268 USA.

Maybe you don’t need me to point it out.  That would be good as it would mean others are seeing the same thing I am seeing – and have been seeing for decades.  Follow my dot-list below and note that these are taken directly from the text:

• His Body
• the church
• Jesus Christ is the Head of His Body
• IN His Body He has chosen to invest HIS SON
• as “the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way”
• a local body of true Heaven-Born Believers
• a lampstand (not simply an “attendance-based” clergy-laity organization
• a daily Christ-honoring, Christ-centered, Bible-believing people who are walking in obedience to God – not just talking about it

All of these descriptions are conflated and compacted into one thing – and that one thing is the thing we have called ‘church’.  But it cannot be.  Either it IS His Body with Jesus Christ as its Head and described as “the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way”; a local body of true Heaven-Born Believers; not an “attendance-based” clergy-laity organization; a daily Christ-honoring, Christ-centred, Bible-believing people walking in obedience to God – OR IT IS NOT.

Now take a look at the following paragraph taken from this same work:

“…we all grew up not esteeming the thing we called “church”. But the thing we were not esteeming was an institution. It was an organization. It was a religious group with some “belief system” that drew them together. But, in the average “church”, more than half of the attendees were not even new creations!”

Here is the confusion: in our thinking, “The Church” is both the wonderful thing we see in the dot-points above AND an institution; an organisation; a religious group with some “belief system” that drew them together; in which “more than half of the attendees were not even new creations!”  It isn’t both!  It can’t be both – either logically or if we base our understanding on the words of Jesus its Founder and Paul, one of its chief founding Apostles.

What this ‘thing’ is that is being described here I am not sure, but it is NOT ‘the church’ that God is building.  That is not the description of ‘the church’ used by Jesus or the Apostles; and it is not the description of ‘the church of the firstborn’ in the pages of the New Testament.

It could be the church that man is building – out of wood, hay and stubble and on sandy ground – a building made with human hands, whose architect and builder is an organisation, an institution, a religious group in which many are “not even new creations”!  It could be, don’t you think.

But it is not the church that God is building – out of gold, silver and precious stones and built on solid ground – a building NOT made with hands, whose architect and builder is God.

We have to stop confusing the two!  As I suggested in an earlier post: they are even more different than a dog and a fish.  One has its origin of species in mortality, the other in immortality; one has its beginnings on earth in time and space, the other is ‘eternal in the heavenlies’ with its beginnings in the vision and passion of God.

It may seem too obvious to some, but I call one church and the other ecclesia.  One is a religious group with a belief system and the imprimatur of man, the other is God’s called-out company / assembly / congregation, with faith in Christ and the imprimatur of God.

Again – let all understand: I love the work of “Jesus Life Together” – and so many other writers and publishers of fine work.  My words here are not harsh criticism and must not be taken as such.  However, again, our very best is often lacking in that it continues to confuse by not making a separation in our understanding between ‘the church’ that God is building (the Body of Christ / Jesus’ Household / the House of God) and ‘the church’ that man is building (the organisations / the institutions / the religions systems).

We are NOT wrong to not esteem this thing; this religious group with some belief system; this institution; this organisation.  Indeed, we are wrong to esteem it – if for no other reason that that it forces upon us unacceptable definitions of things God has already previously defined for us in the life of Jesus and the historical record of ‘the church of the firstborn’.

The article I drew the above quotes from is titled: DO I HAVE TO "GO TO CHURCH"?

I have no hesitation saying, "NO - you don't". Church is something we "go to" - if we want to be part of the religious scene. Ecclesia is something we ARE.

But, do we need to stay in living touch with others around us in our Holy Spirit born family? Absolutely!  You don't need the church - but you do need the ecclesia.

Have another look at the images above. You don't need the usual church meetings and they are generally far from brilliant if the standard is Jesus and the New Testament. But do we need to gather in twos and threes (or more) around and unto the person of Jesus, who is, after all, the Head of the ecclesia and the reason we live and gather? Absolutely!

One final image: this one comes from the Question Mark series of booklets published by Scripture Union (UK) a few decades ago. The figure has no head drawn because the Head is Christ. The rest of the body is you and me and the other guy (or girl). And the body can do all that a body is made to do if and when we are joined to the Head and to each other as Christ orders it and we serve according to our gifts and our vocation in the body, with servant-heartedness and the love that Jesus talked about so often.

Cheers,

Kevin.

Does God have a definition of 'church'?

If there is one fault with Floyd McClung's view of the definition of church as Jesus drew it (Wed 4 April post: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them"), it is that it is too open to us as humans being the ones who determine what "in my name" means.  Most often, I feel, we treat it as some kind of magic spell: if we say it often enough with enough feeling, it becomes true whether it is in fact true or not.  [The subject of "In Jesus' Name" is another post for another time.]

I do not believe that simply pronouncing that a gathering is "in Jesus' name", makes it, in truth, a gathering in His name.  But, for practical purposes, Jesus' statement serves us well in helping us understand that Jesus does not want us to complicate the matter and make it difficult for people to understand and fully enter into.

But, I believe God has a definition of 'church'.  I believe it is a little more detailed than Jesus' statement, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

..oo000oo..

IF there are two groups of people in the world – those who go to church and those who don’t – and God takes His finger and draws a line to delineate those who are lost and those who are saved, His line will doubtless include people from both groups and exclude people from both groups.

That demonstrates at least one thing for certain: there are two things called ‘the church’.  One is God’s definition; one is man’s definition.  If we get nothing else, we must get this.  This is fundamental to understanding the times and having knowledge of what the people of God should do (like the sons of Isaachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32).

IF the scriptures speak a truth when we read there that Jesus responded to some who claimed, “but haven’t we healed the sick and cast out demons in your name” with “Depart from Me, I never knew you”, doesn’t that indicate that we would be very wise indeed to go by His definitions of things?

We go on and on and on about ‘reaching the lost’ and about sinners repenting, but we fail to see that we can be “in the church” of man and NOT “in the church of the Father”.  This is a very un-helpful place to be.  Remember Paul (to the Corinthians) “And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete”.  In God’s economy, we have little to say to the world until our own obedience is complete – and it is far from it.  As we know from Jesus and the first apostles, the gospel of Jesus demands obedience.  Indeed, there is no salvation without it.  While there are so many who are in man’s church but not in the church of the Father, their calls for obedience to the gospel are acts of shameless hypocrisy before men, and outright rebellion towards God.

I believe that God wants to bring a certain 'fire' into our lives that equals God’s finger writing on our wall “you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting”.  His finger of fire draws a line through our structures and paradigms and grids, and highlights those who are His and those who are not.  This is the kind of fire that God wants and is building up to now, I believe.

There is another kind of fire and we must clearly distinguish between the two.  Read Isaiah 50:10-11 and Jeremiah 13:15-17.  Both these prophets spoke to Israel about going into captivity.  Jeremiah warns them to “give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness” upon them.  “You hope for light, but He will turn it to thick darkness” is rather tragic and graphic language.

Isaiah, in similar vein, asks “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word ...?”   He wasn’t expecting an answer, he was identifying the ones his next phrases refer to: “Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light [remember, the darkness did actually come upon them], trust in the name of the Lord and rely on His God.”

Here is a prophetic vision of the people of God – those who fear Him and obey His words; those INSIDE God’s line of delineation – “walking in darkness and having no light”!  Can you imagine it?  Do you get it?  Sometimes the people of God live in a dark place, without much light, and they are instructed by the servant of the Lord, the prophet as to what to do.  “Trust in the Lord and rely on your God”. (Notice that they have already been described as people who obey the servant of the Lord)

Then comes the warning.  There is absolutely no doubt that the temptation comes, in the midst of darkness and stumbling about, to start fires and light fire-torches (fire-brands) to quell the darkness and stop stumbling about.  The prophet of the Lord says, if you do that, this is what you will get: “you will lie down in torment.” 

THIS kind of fire we do not want.  That is the word of the prophet of the Lord then and it is the word of the prophet of the Lord now.  This is NOT a time for starting our own fires and setting our own fire-brands alight.  This IS a time to “trust in the Lord and rely on your God” who is lighting HIS fires – or, more to the point, drawing his line of fire within and among people and thus setting them on fire with His character, His word and His power.  This must come first, or else the fires that we start will not be the fires of Holy Spirit revival but of the revival of religious flesh.  And we have plenty of that already.

Please take the time to read the following.  It is extracted from around 1995/6 if my memory serves me well.  You will find my name mentioned in passing in this teaching and prophetic word on the Stormharvest.com.au website.

It’s called “Fire Starters - Releasing the Church”, by Robert I Holmes and it reads in part ...

In the Bible, fire symbolises several things. These include: holiness (Zech. 2:5, Deut. 4:24), God's glory (Ezek. 1:4, 13), his protective presence (2 Kings 6:17), His nature (Heb 12:29), His very words (Jer 23:29) which he puts in the mouths of his prophetic servants (Jer 5:14), an instrument of purification (Psalm 66:12, Isa 43:2) and refinement (Zech. 13:8,9, 1 Cor 3:13,15) and lastly as a symbol of His wrath against sin (Isa 66:15,16). All of these things are a part of a ministry coming to the church: the fire starters.

The nature of this ministry was made clear to me on the last day of 1995 when the Lord cam to me and said: "The city of Sydney was set on fire two years ago (January 1994 in fact). It was circled about, and burned throughout by evil pyromaniacs. A dozen wicked men touched the lives of every inhabitant in the Sydney area. These things were a sign. I will again set this city on fire!  But not with evil, but for good, not by fire bugs, but by my Holy Ghost Fire Starters. There are holy men of God, who will spark the fires that touch the lives of every person in my kingdom one way or another!" ....

Then in January 1996 I had a vision confirming this message: In a vision the Lord said to me "Look at the house of Israel", and I looked and saw a teeming multitude. He said "Many who you see in the church are not in the house [of the Lord]. Yet I have my fire starters in every land and province. Behold, I am about to mobilise my church. I will light a fire under them." I looked again at the multitude and saw some lashing themselves, I saw men in chains, and others bound. Some were sitting on the ground rocking back and forth. "See, in the church many are bound by religion. They have been deceived and follow in the traditions of men, they are ignorant of my Son, they ignore Him. See those who have grown cold in captivity. They think they are free but they are bound. They have been taken captive to Babylon in chains. Some whip themselves with the Law, for they are under the Law, and not under Grace". I could feel the Lord's heart, burning for them, burning for the lost, and filled with love for His bride." ...

God is looking for a people He can use to start the fires burning. The fires of repentance, the baptism of the Spirit, a fire under the church! The fire starters will come in this aspect of Christ's ministry, kindling a fire on the earth. ...

From the two revelations I heard at the beginning of this year, it is evident that God shall sovereignly raise up these individuals. Many are in the organisation called the church, yet are not in the house of the Lord. The fire starter will be used of God to lead many to true faith in Christ, many who call themselves by the name of Christ (Christians).

Whatever we do, I plead with you.  Please do not mistake the fires of man for the fire of God’s Spirit for our day.  There are still many lighting their own fires because of the darkness and the gloom and the stumbling about.  It’s the logical thing to do, but they will still produce torment.  Mostly they are political fires – men trying to usher in the Kingdom of God by means of the kingdom of man.  They are not God’s work but man’s, and they will severely slow down – or quench altogether – the fire of the Spirit of God.  If we want the full fire of the gospel of God, first  the fire of God’s holiness must produce repentance and obedience within and among those who will wait patiently for Him and, in that waiting, “trust in the Name of the Lord and rely on their God.”

God's line of delineation distinguishes those who trust Him and rely on Him for their right standing before Him in Jesus Christ, from those who imagine they can be in right standing before God on the basis of their own goodness or their own personal effort - or by a priest or pastor acting in their behalf.

God's definition of church is those who trust in the Lord and rely on God and so stand before Him in Jesus, depending absolutely on the perfect acceptability of Jesus and his life and death on our behalf. 

There is a priest and a mediator between God and us - but it is not another man and it is not a church or a church official - it is, as the bible says, "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). And it is those who stand in that mediation and who trust in the Lord and rely on God who are the ones who act and speak "in Jesus' name".

Not just anybody who gathers and says, 'we are gathering in the name of Jesus' can claim to be ecclesia - church as Jesus defined it - but those who trust completely in the full and total acceptability of Jesus before the Father and trust in and rely on the Father for their life.  And when they gather - whether it is two or three, or two or three hundred, Jesus is there, in their midst.

That's how I believe God understands church.  I also believe that if we don't so understand it, we cannot make a legitimate claim to be His people.  There are many who are members of the churches of man who are not members of the ecclesia of God; likewise, there are many members of the ecclesia of God who are not members of the churches of man.

And I thank God for that!

Cheers,

Kevin.

Semantics

“You’re just playing with words, aren’t you?  All this talk about church and ekklesia and kuriakos is just a smokescreen.  Everybody knows what church is.”

According to any good dictionary, semantics is the study of words and their meanings, including changes in meaning over time.  However, this word itself seems to be undergoing a change in meaning.  The way it is used popularly gives the impression that it is not about meanings but about the manipulative and seductive use of language to make a point that would otherwise be difficult to make.

For many people, semantics is little more than ‘playing with words’.  And this is often the charge brought against people who attempt to get at the truth of a matter by using the meanings of words and noting how meanings have either changed or been manipulated in the process.

‘You’re just playing with words’, or ‘That’s just an exercise in semantics’ is a charge I regularly hear if I ever get to engage with people on topics they have a vested interest in.  This subject of church is one of them.

The truth is, they are the ones ‘playing with words’ – they are the ones engaged in the manipulative and seductive use of language to make a point.  Indeed, the case of the word ‘church’ is one we should be protesting loudly about.

King James I, when putting together the translation team for what we know as the Authorised Version of the bible (the King James Version), gave a specific instruction to translate the key Greek word in such a way that the readers of the book were led to believe that the man-made structures of the christian religion were God’s true ecclesia.  That was playing with words. 

King James himself engaged in an exercise in the manipulative and seductive use of language to make a point that would otherwise be difficult to make.  And to this day – for the same manipulative and seductive outcome – we perpetuate the error.

It is quite clear to many – though few will admit it – that the choice of this word by the writers of the New Testament was deliberate and this word had a very clear meaning at the point in time when it was chosen.

And an important part of that meaning is that it referred to things that were distinctly not the institutions of the day, but rather a congregation or assembly of the ordinary people of the day, chosen and tasked for a particular function.  In Greek society at the time, to refer to their ekklesia as synonymous with their institutions would have been preposterous on the one hand and insulting on the other: preposterous to the Emperor and the institutions and insulting to those who made up the ekklesia.

The point is – from the beginning, there was a clear distinction made and that distinction needs to be continued.  We cannot let the evolution of language rob us of such a fundamentally important truth as the ecclesia, especially given that the evolution was not natural but imposed deliberately to confuse the matter and to conflate two distinctly different things into one murky mass of mediocrity.

There are institutions and there is ecclesia.  I reiterate – they are as different and distinct as dogs and fish.  And it is not I who is making this a matter of playing with words.  I am making it a matter of semantics – actual meanings of words.  It was King James, and so many others who have not undone his mischief, who are playing with words and abusing language for their own vested interests.

The prophets of today, as in every generation since the ecclesia was born at Pentecost, know that this is true.  Many ordinary people know deeply, in their heart of hearts, that the ecclesia of God is not the same thing as the institutions of religion; they just don’t quite know what is real or what to do about it.  The institutions insist on demanding allegiance to them on threat of believers losing their salvation – at best, calling people back from ‘backsliding’ and ‘forsaking assembling’.

The truth is, the accusers are the ones guilty of backsliding and forsaking assembling and are, I believe, genuinely at risk of getting to the finish line and hearing the words, “depart from me, I never knew you.”

The demands of the institutions look, sound and feel very much like the actions of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.  If it looks like a duck etc., etc., etc….!  Indeed this is a suggestion made by a number of writers today.

Yes, I am exercising semantics – because it is absolutely vital to understand this issue.  No, I am not engaging in ‘playing with words’ and the ones accusing me of doing so are the very ones guilty of that charge.

A very old phrase says, “Methinks he doth protest too much”.  I have learned in life that when I hear repeated pained loud public protests on a subject, I am hearing and seeing what that person is guilty of.  This has proved true over and over again.  If you weren’t guilty of it, you would not be protesting so long and loud about it.

It is time for the ordinary believers to stand firm and say strongly to the institutions, “You are not the ecclesia: not now, never have been, never will be.”

I have reached a point of saying, let the institutions have the word ‘church’ (though I disagree that they are ‘the Lord’s possession’ as the word means), but make a clear distinction between that and ecclesia, and make it clear that ecclesia is God’s called-out people, not organisations, programs, buildings and clergy.  In ‘church’, men get to decide who is in and who is out; in ecclesia, that is a matter for God – because, in ecclesia, it is not about a faith or a religion but about a passionate relationship between a Father and his children, mediated by Jesus, not by a priest or a reverend or a pastor.

Put another way, church is external, ecclesia is internal.  Church is always other and external; something you join or don’t join; something you go to, belong to or attend.  Ecclesia is always internal – a matter of personal transformation and romance; you don’t join it, it joins you to your Father and brothers and sisters; it is not something you go to or belong to or attend, it is what you are.

This matter is a matter of semantics – and rightly so – because we seem to have lost our way and so many people have been brutalised and killed.  But for years we have been lied to and deceived by the very ones telling us we are wrong and they are right.

In Why Revival Tarries (1959), Leonard Ravenhill has a message titled, ‘WANTED – A PROPHET TO PREACH TO THE PREACHERS’.  I would be delighted to do that job. Indeed, I have done it from time to time – and at sixty years of age and over forty years in christian ministry, perhaps I might just be qualified.

Kuriakos v. Ekklesia

In our world, there are generally three things we call ‘church’: the church that God is building, the church that man is building, and the buildings used for church meetings.  But only one has the imprimatur of God and it shouldn’t be called ‘church’ because that is entirely the wrong word to use.

Personally, I think Floyd McClung is onto something in You See Bones I See an Army (2007: published by David C Cook) when he asks the question, “Is it too simplistic to think we can define church in a few words?  Is it possible for untrained non-experts to grasp what church is about?” (p. 43).  I love his answer:

Some theologians would have us believe that it’s impossible to describe in a few words what they have spent whole volumes trying to define and describe.  But from my perspective, it’s possible to define the church in a few words because that’s what Jesus did.  Theologians have made church far too complicated.  The bible defines church very simply because God wants everyone to be part of it.  Jesus came not only to die on the cross for our sins, but to give the church back to ordinary people…

In the religious systems of his day, religious rulers used religion to control people.  When Jesus came he turned everything on its head

McClung goes on to say (p.44), “Though Paul pioneered the first church in Europe, it was Jesus who modelled simple church, and defined church in such simple terms.  He did this to help his followers understand the new way of doing things.  Here is the way Jesus defined church: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.’”

It is just such a shame that he doesn’t make the distinction between the church that God is building (ekklesia) and the church that man is building (kuriakos).  Unfortunately, like the vast majority of the material available today, it continues to disregard Tyndale’s work and blurs the two, conflating them into one and the same thing – which they clearly are not.

At a very fundamental level, we can see a distinction between kuriakos and ekklesia that is as clear and distinct as between a dog and a fish: legs > fins; hair > scales; land-based > water-based; one gets oxygen from the air, the other from the water.  Ekklesia is not about meetings but about the over-arching mission of God and making a bride for His Son; take the meetings out of kuriakos and you have little left.  Ekklesia doesn’t need a special class of people using a special language in special locations and special buildings with special music and special windows and special carpark; remove these ‘special’ things from kuriakos and you have little left.  Ekklesia doesn’t need a man-created program and agenda or an ‘order of service’; do away with the program in kuriakos and you have little left.

But what is to me by far the most exhilarating thing about this issue is that it is people, not institutions, organisations and programs that inherit the kingdom of God – both now in time and in eternity.  The “joint-heirs with Christ” – the inheritors of all the Father is and has – are redeemed, justified people, not institutions organisations and programs.  In the eternal kingdom, there are no institutions, organisations and programs apart from God Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and the Bride of the Son.  It seems to me that we would do well to mirror that as we minister in the here-and-now Kingdom of God, instead of perpetuating the will of the ancient monarchs and clergymen.

The things I am talking about here are also visible to us in the messages of several of the Old Testament prophets concerning old Israel.  Jeremiah 2 and 3 are deep and penetrating charges brought by God against His kuriakos (His special possession).  Listen to the ‘weeping prophet’ and see if you do not feel his pain even today.

“What injustice did your fathers find in me, that they went far from me and walked after emptiness and became empty?  And they did not say, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up out of the land of Egypt?’  The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ and those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after the things that did not profit.”

“Has a nation changed gods, (when they were not even gods)?  But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.  Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord.  For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cistern, that can hold no water.”

“God says, ‘If a husband divorces his wife, and she goes from him, and belongs to another man, will he still return to her?  Will not that land be completely alienated?  But you are a harlot with many lovers; yet you turn to me,’ declares the Lord.  Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see; where have you not been violated?  By the roads you have sat for them like an Arab in the desert, and you have polluted a land with your harlotry…”

“Surely, as a women treacherously departs from her lover, so you have dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel.”

Like Israel before her, Kuriakos prostitutes herself with all kinds of ‘lovers’ who promise fame and fortune.  In his wisdom, God has now implemented His new administration which began in Jesus and was brought to birth at Pentecost – ekklesia.  And nothing will keep Him from His plan, His mission, His passion.  Paul wrote, “Christ loved the ecclesia and gave himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word [‘rhema’, not logos or scripture], that He might present to Himself the ecclesia in all her glory having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless.”

A little further on, I want to mention the work of Frank Viola – in particular, From Eternity to Here – and spend some time on the subject of what is God’s vision and mission and passion for the people he has created.  For now, let me just give you a very short summary.

I agree with Viola that a vast amount of the theology and teaching of evangelical protestant christianity is built on the contents of the bible from Genesis chapter 3 to Revelation chapter 20 – from the fall of man to the judgement seat.  We have a tendency to make the bible fit our theologies rather than inform them, I fear.  But, the bible has Genesis 1 and 2 as well as Revelation 21 and 22.  As viola says, the story of God in relation to us humans begins with a man and a woman in a beautiful garden and ends with a man a woman in a new heaven and a new earth; it begins with a wedding and ends with a wedding.  In between, is the wonderful story of God relentlessly pursuing His passion and His mission until all is accomplished.

God has a most marvellous passion in His breast and it flows out of Him in the form of His plan, His mission, His purpose.  Central to that purpose is three things: a bride for His Son; a house and a home as a resting place; and a large family living as a household.  The story of God is a romance – a love story – of epic proportions.  The fall of man and the judgement seat of Christ do not – will not – keep God from His eternal purpose.  They are but means to His ends.  And that purpose – that end – includes the ‘wedding breakfast’ for the Son and His bride.

According to Revelation 22, “The Spirit and the Bride say come.”  The Bride is – if Paul is to believed – the ecclesia, not the kuriakos.  The kuriakos contains the works of man, the fingerprints of man and the grubby tarnishes of man – ‘dead works’ that will all be burned away.

What a shame that we would spend so much time, effort and money building kuriakos (our own houses) and neglect the building of ekklesia (God’s house): sounds a bit like Haggai 1:9.

Cheers,
Kevin.

Tyndale (Part 3)

William Tyndale did a translation of the New Testament that did not contain the word 'church'.  Yep - that's right  the word church does not appear in it!  And I believe he was. The New Testament texts do not contain the word ‘church’, so it should not be in our English bibles.  So how and why do we come to use this word for absolutely everything that deals with the idea of the New Covenant people of God?

In English, the letters ‘ch’ are almost unique in being pronounced as in ‘chair’.  In most other languages when they exist, they are pronounced as a k.  Small wonder that we know of a word spelt k-i-r-k that is used as an alternative for ch-u-r-ch.  The ancient Greek also knows of a similar word k-u-r-i-a-k-o-s.  Virtually all the Germanic languages follow the ‘kirk’ linguistic line, whereas the Latin-based languages follow the ‘ekklesia’ linguistic line.  Why is that?  Greek, however, knows two words – kuriakos and ekklesia.  Never – and I repeat never – did the writers of the New Testament use the kuriakos (‘kirk’) word when speaking of the New Covenant people of God – post Jesus.  Is it not strange that we do – and continue to do so despite one of our most treasured and famed bible translators being murdered for this very thing?  Kuriakos literally means ‘the Lord’s’ (as in belonging to the Lord).  Ekklesia is a word specifically chosen by Jesus and the New Testament disciples to refer not just to the people of God generally, but to how they came into being and how they are to live their corporate life.

Church (kirk/kuriakos) is connected all the way back to Israel and Jewry before Jesus and is quite evident in the Old Testament and in the life and work of the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day.  Israel is sometimes referred to as the Lord’s special ‘possession’ – Exodus 19:5; Malachi 3:17; Isaiah 19:25; Jeremiah 12:7; Joel 3:2 for example.  Israel’s temple, as the Old Covenant’s dwelling place for God, would, in Greek, be kuriakos doma – the Lord’s House.  It is interesting to say the least that this expression – the Lord’s House – is not used in the New Testament as the means of identifying the New Covenant people of God.  The word that the New Testament uses is ekklesia – a different word altogether, and a different concept from that of the Old Testament in relation to Israel.

Ecclesia (ekklesia) is connected all the way back to Jesus and is quite evident in the congregations pioneered by Paul and some who followed him.  The choice of this word for the New Covenant description of the people of God is, I believe, deliberate – and creates a watershed in history.  Ekklesia is not a re-branded, revised continuation of the kuriakos of Israel, but a whole new thing.  Paul addresses this specifically, I believe, when he outlines his understanding of his God-given commission in Ephesians 3:1-11.  The life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit to be in (as distinct from upon) His people ushered in a totally new ‘administration of the realm’ and central to that new administration is the ekklesia.  It is neither an extension nor a continuation of the kuriakos of the Old; it is the New

Both kuriakos and ekkleisa – separately – have, I believe, not simply a connection from the present to the past, but also a distinct line of DNA: one to old Israel, the other to Jesus, his disciples and the apostle Paul.  Perhaps it is helpful to see them as two separate and distinct species, not varieties of the same species: like, for instance, a dog and a fish, not two varieties of dog.

But as with dogs and fish, there is no life-connection between kuriakos and ekklesia.  The only connection that exists is, on the one hand, that they are both populated by humans – sometimes the same humans – and, on the other hand, that God knows about both and has them both in His purview - thankfully!

Tyndale died making the point that the 'church' as he knew it (and as we know it) is not the ecclesia of God.  They are two different and separate things each with own distinct DNA. One is built and fit for eternity, the other is not.  One is built, headed and led by God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The other is built, headed and led by humans.

And Tyndale died praying, "Lord open the King of England's eyes!"  We know that, 150 years later when the new King (James I) decided to authorise an English bible, his eyes had not been opened: one of his specific instructions to the translation team (Rule #3 of 15) was that "The old ecclesiastical words to be kept, viz.: as the word ‘Church’ not to be translated ‘Congregation’ etc."

To the present day, the official line is that what we call 'the church' is the ecclesia of God - neve mind what God says - and never mind what the bible says!

Cheers,
Kevin.

Tyndale (Part 2)

As I noted in my last post, up to this day, millions of people worldwide honour Tyndale and value his pioneering but dangerous bible translation work.  But one has to ask, why were there sinister forces working against him and running surveillance on him?  That is the question for us here.  And, however much we like to think it otherwise, at the root of it, Tyndale was spied upon, betrayed, arrested, tried, murdered and discarded because of four words.  Granted, the incestuous authorities of Church and State saw him as seditious and heretical, but these four words – and his unwillingness to compromise on them – got him killed.

Let’s take a look at the four words involved.  For Tyndale, the Greek agape should not be translated charity but love; the word episkopos should not be translated bishop but overseer; the word presbyter should not be translated priest but elder; the word ekklesia should not be translated church but congregation or assembly.

These were not philosophical preferences on the part of Tyndale, but deeply held convictions concerning correct and accurate translation based on much study and research.  What Tyndale was saying is basically this: accurate translation of the Greek words into English for the purpose of putting the truth into the hands of all Christians demands just that: accuracy.  What the conflation of religious institutions and monarchy wanted was to ensure that when people read or interpreted or taught the bible, the people heard that the bible justified and supported them and their institutions, not some alternative arrangement that would take them out from under church/monarchy control – into what they construed as sedition and heresy.

Now take a good look at your English bibles.  With the exception of the KJV (we’ll come to that exception a little later), few good English bibles commonly used in the Protestant stream of life disagree with Tyndale on three of the four words.  However, on the fourth, they totally back up the institutional/monarchical preference.  They translate agape as love, episkopos as overseer (some still prefer bishop), presbyter as elder.  But Tyndale’s translation is still almost the only one that translates ekklesia as congregation or assembly instead of church.  Why is that?

Why – because the institutions and organisations still want to demand allegiance to their systems and structures on the basis that the scriptures give them legitimacy.  Unfortunately, ‘legitimacy’ is gained via knowingly invoking an incorrect English translation.  To me, that is a profound and damning abuse of fleshly power and control.  Have we ever stopped to think what Jesus – as Head of the ecclesia – thinks about it, or what the Holy Spirit – as the pre-eminent teacher – thinks about it, or what the Father – as the original visionary and dreamer – thinks about it?

If we did think about it – humbly and in submission to the Lord – wouldn’t we stop teaching and living error and speak and live the truth?  If, as Paul teaches, in ecclesia it is ‘first apostles, second prophets, third teachers’, wouldn’t we be listening to the long line of apostles prophets and teachers from Paul to the present (mostly ignored, hated, persecuted and killed) instead of listening to so-called  ‘pastors’ and ‘evangelists’ who want to protect their positions and reputations in the institutions?  When are we going to begin to do things following the pattern of Jesus and Paul instead of the pattern of the Pharisees?

Tyndale was right!  The New Testament does not contain the word ‘church’, so it should not be in our English bibles.  So how and why do we come to use this word for absolutely everything that deals with the idea of the New Covenant people of God?  That's the question for my next post.

Cheers,

Kevin.

Tyndale (Part 1)

The next section of this web log addresses a deep and at times difficult issue among today's believers.  But it has been an issue from some time soon after the close of the first century AD.  I find that, to get to the heart of the issue, it helps to inquire into the story of William Tyndale. As you may know, he was a preeminent bible translator at the time when there was no complete English bible and he gave us the first English bible translated from the original language texts.

In his translation of the New Testament, the English word 'church' does not appear - quite rightly in my opinion - because the Greek word for 'church' is kuriakos and the correct translation of the word that is in the Greek text of the New Testament is 'congregation' or 'gathering' or 'assembly' but definitely not 'church'.

What follows in the next few posts is an examination of New Testament 'church', starting with Tyndale.

..oo000oo.. 

Ever been in a meeting where the preacher says, “The New Testament Greek word for church is ecclesia”?  How many times do you think you’ve heard that?  Don’t know about you, but I’ve lost count.

In Acts 17, Luke is telling the story of the travels of Paul and Silas.  They pass through Thessalonica and arrive at Berea.  Luke says, “Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether [the things Paul and Silas were saying] were so.”

At an early age, I began trying to be ‘noble-minded’ about what I was hearing, imagining that the ones I was listening to were also noble-minded and would not simply tolerate my searching the scriptures ‘to see if these things were so’, but actually expect that of me.  That was a former generation of elders and leaders.  These days, you’re a trouble-maker if you do that.  And these days I make no apology for obeying God rather than men.

As I ‘searched the scriptures’ on this matter, I found that all these preachers and teachers are only half right.  And I think that perhaps that is being generous.  They’re maybe ten percent correct.  What we indeed have is the situation where every time the word ‘ecclesia’ appears in the Greek text, our English translators render it ‘church’.  Generally, nobody argues with me there.  But that’s the ten percent – the fact that it happens.  The real issue is, should it be translated thus?  I think not.  And I am in good company.  Surprised?  If more of us were noble-minded – more like the Bereans than the Thessalonians – we would not be so surprised – and we would be much wiser.

Let me introduce William Tyndale.  Wikipedia puts Tyndale’s life span at AD 1492-1536.  He lost his life at 44 years of age.  Many histories of Christianity list Tyndale among the ‘Reformers’.  Like other reformers, he is also in the list of martyrs – those murdered for their ministry.  I have a wonderful old book in my library and it is dated 1885, from London: T. Woolmer, 2 Castle Street, City Road, E.C.; and 66 Paternoster Road, E.C.  It is titled “Wycliffe to Wesley; Heroes and Martyrs of the Church in Britain.”  The print below is taken from a line drawing of Tyndale in that book.

The final words about Tyndale in that historical record are these: “According to his sentence, Tyndale was first strangled and then burnt at the stake, his last prayer being, ‘Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!’”

As Jesus had Judas to sell Him out for a few pieces of silver, there was a man in Tyndale’s life who would sell him out too.  He was Henry Philips – known only for his betrayal of Tyndale.  Philips pretended to be a convert to Protestantism and Tyndale believed his profession and took him into his trust.  But have a read of this, taken from that same historical record:

Doubtless Philips was the agent of others more cunning than himself, and certainly he was in communication with the Emperor’s law officers.  Watching his opportunity, when Thomas Poyntz, whose guest Tyndale was, had left Antwerp for some days, Philips invited the doomed man to dine with him.  Tyndale refused on the plea that he was engaged to dine at a friend’s, but invited Philips to accompany him.  ‘So when it was dinner-time, Master Tyndale went forth with Philips; and at the going out of Poyntz’ house was a long narrow entry, so that two could not go in a front.  Master Tyndale would have put Philips before him, but Philips would in no wise, but put Master Tyndale afore, for that he pretended to show great humanity [politeness].  So Master Tyndale, being a man of no great stature, went before; and Philips, a tall, comely person, followed behind him, who had set officers on either side of the door upon two seats (which being there, might see who came into the entry); and coming through the same entry Philips pointed with his finger over Master Tyndale’s head down to him, that the officers, which sat at the door, might see that it was he whom they should take’.         [This extract is taken from Foxe in his Book of Martyrs.]

So betrayed, Tyndale was arrested and held in custody for “a year and a hundred and thirty-five days, from May 23^rd or 24^th , 1535 to October 6^th, 1536.”  A ‘kangaroo court’ trial followed and his sentence was pronounced.
 

To this day, millions of people worldwide honour Tyndale and value his pioneering but dangerous bible translation work.  But one has to ask, why were there sinister forces working against him and running surveillance on him?  That is the question for us here.  And, however much we like to think it otherwise, at the root of it, Tyndale was spied upon, betrayed, arrested, tried, murdered and discarded because of four words.  Granted, the incestuous authorities of Church and State saw him as seditious and heretical, but these four words – and his unwillingness to compromise on them – got him killed.

to be continued...