Church is not what most people think it is. Given that church is one of the key representative words for faith in Christ, this is a disaster. No wonder so many outside the family of God misunderstand what being in the family is about.
In modern English the word church refers to a building devoted to Christian worship. That is the primary meaning in dictionaries and in common usage. As such it is a terrible translation of the word that Jesus and Paul used. Just over 110 times in most New Testaments you will find the word church. Not one of those times is it referring to a building.
The original language of the New Testament was Koine Greek. The word translated church is ekklesia. It was a common word in the first century and had no religious significance. There were Greek words that did describe religious groups (agora, panegyris, synagoge etc.) Warning: Word studies can be a little dry (euphemism for boring) but hang in there, there is an incredible truth here that you and I need to be aware of.
So, the Holy Spirit took a secular word, ekklesia, and used it to refer to groups of Christians. It’s meaning had its origins in the combination of ek which means out of and kaleo which means to call. It referred to any group of people called out for a special purpose. It was also commonly used of a group of people (usual mature) who served as a caring influence on a community.
This is the word the Holy Spirit chose to use when He spoke of God’s people.
And what have we done with it? We translated it into a word that mainly refers to “holy” buildings or to massive Christian bureaucracies (OK I know “we” didn’t do it, but you know what I mean). No wonder there is so much confusion about God’s people.
Because of this I have decided to stop using the word, church, when referring to God’s people. Instead I will use body, family, ekklesia. Anything but church.
The Christians we read about in Acts were not an institution, nor a location. They were the people of God. They were disciples of Jesus. They were the ones who God had called out of the world. Called out for a purpose. A special purpose. God’s purpose.
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you should proclaim the praises of Him, who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God”. I Peter 2:9.
As you can see there is a lot more to being Christ’s ekklesia than being a called out people. However the ekklesia is a group of people. A group Jesus promised to build. A group that He bought with His own blood. A group who are described as HIS body and HIS bride.
This not just a semantic point, a mere detail concerning word meaning. Next time you read all those verses which have the word church in them, substitute it with family of God, or body of Christ, or ekklesia or called out by God people. You will be shocked at how it changes what you hear from those verses.
Think about it for a bit. When has an army been mistaken for a barracks? When has the congress been mistaken for the building it meets in? Hardly ever. When has God's people been mistaken for a building? All the time. No wonder so many are confused before we even begin talking to them about Jesus.
But, what can we do? Actually it is something we should stop doing. Stop assuming people know what you mean when you use the word church. Tell them about the wonder that is God's family with the risen Jesus at its center.
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