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.