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Why we call
ourselves an ecclesia and not a church
The ideas conventionally associated with the word
church are altogether unscriptural. Ecclesia
(the Greek word translated church in English) never signifies in
the Bible "the place which Christians consecrate to the worship
of God;" nor does it signify such collective bodies of "professors
of religion" as pass current for Christians in and with the world,
under the various "names and denominations" of "Christendom." These,
and many other ideas associated with the word church,
such as churchman, church-warden, church-attire, churchyard, churching
of women, and all such things, are altogether foreign from the scriptural
use of ecclesia.
Therefore, we exclude church
from our vocabulary, and hold on to the word used by the apostles.
Ecclesia, is a word compounded of ek,
"out of," and klesis,
"a call, or invitation." Hence an ekklesis,
is "an invitation to come out;" and the assembly of people convened
in consequence of their acceptance of the invitation is an ecclesia.
This is the etymology of the word, which is also in agreement with
its scriptural constitution,
The mission of the apostles was to the Jews first, and afterwards
to the Gentiles, for the purpose of announcing to them an
invitation from the Deity to certain things,
which, when accepted, became to the invited "the Hope of the Calling."
In delivering this message, or invitation, they distinctly defined
the things to which their hearers were invited. In doing this, they
informed them of the purpose of Deity--that He
had appointed a day in the which the whole inhabited earth should
be ruled in righteousness by the Anointed Jesus, whom he had raised
from among the dead--Dan.
2:44; 7:14; Acts 17:31. But that, before that "day" of the administration
of the world's affairs in righteousness should be introduced, He
had, in his great mercy and goodness, determined to invite all Jews
and Gentiles to share in that kingdom and glory with eternal life,
upon certain specified
and indispensable conditions.
So the twelve apostles, constituting "the Apostleship of the Circumcision,"
were sent to the circumcised; and Paul to the uncircumcised, to
invite all ranks and degrees of all nations "to God's Kingdom and
Glory"--1 Thess. 2:12. The result proposed by this invitation
was not the converting of the "immortal souls" of mankind, and the
saving of them from eternal conflagration in the apocalyptic "Lake
of Fire and Brimstone;" it was not that they might "get religion,"
and by its efficacy obtain a right and title to mansions in the
skies: no such clerical result as these were proposed by the invitation.
The invitation was designed, in the words of James, "to
take out of the nations a people
for His Name.
The people who in this age have the Name of the Father written in
their foreheads subscribe to the description - The Ecclesia
of God.
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