Ekklesia 04 - Local Congregations, Pt1

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

We are continuing our series of lessons titled “Understanding Ekklesia;” Ekklesia, once again, being the Greek word that is often translated as “church” in our New Testaments.

REVEIW

We have seen in our studies that “church” is not a literal translation of the Greek word ‘ekklesia,’ and that this Greek word is not inherently a religious word itself. The word was used in the Greek speaking world to describe any group of people, whether they are religious or not.

Literal translations of ekklesia would be “assembly, congregation, a group or bunch of people.” We have seen in both the Septuagint and in the New Testament that this word is used to talk about secular groups, such as armies, political/judicial assemblies, riotous mobs, and groups of sinful people. And the word is also used to describe God’s covenant people under both covenants.

THE EKKLESIA OF JESUS

It is important to see the use of ekklesia throughout the Bible and in the Greek speaking world because this helps us to understand what is being spoken of when we see the word “church” in our New Testaments.

We should not think of buildings or clergy or church leaders or organizations or institutions. We need to think of a group of people when we see the word “church” in our New Testaments. The ekklesia of Jesus is the assembly or congregation or community of Christ’s people.

Last week, in talking about the people belonging to Jesus, we saw how the word ekklesia is used in the New Testament in the context of the universal assembly of the Lord Jesus — the group of all saved individuals of all time, including those who are saved now. We examined a list of nine attributes of the universal church — nine things that are taught in the New Testament about the body of Christ, and while we did this, we talked about some misconceptions that we can be guilty of having about the universal assembly of the Lord.

Local Congregations - review

Today, I would like to look at what the Bible teaches about local congregations.

As we saw in our first lesson, the word ekklesia is used to describe a group of Christians living in a specific geographical area. Here are a couple examples:

Here are some examples of ekklesia being used in this way:

“To the church of God that is in Corinth…” (, ESV)

“…To the church of the Thessalonians…” (, ESV)

These were groups of Christians that worked and worshipped together in these cities.

REMINDER

But, once again, we need to remember that in all of these biblical descriptions of local congregations, these are descriptions of the group of people. We may agree when talking about the universal church that it is not an organization or institution or business enterprise, but then change out tune when talking about local congregations. What we can do is start using them as though they are proper names of we consider organizations or institutions. We can use ekklesia in denominational ways, using it as an adjective to describe things, saying things like, “I am a church of Christ Christian,” or “he is a church of Christ preacher,” or “this belief is church of Christ doctrine.”

We can even talk about “being a member” of a local congregation like the local church is an institution, organization, or entity more than the people. We can treat it like a club that we are a member of and pay our dues to through the collection. We can think of the church as a business organization that hires and fires. It has it’s hired workers and managers, and we then market the organization and the services people can get from it as the best product around town.

As we have stressed in our lessons, these are misrepresentations of the nature of the church. The local congregation — just as the universal assembly— is a group of people. It is not an institution or an organization. It is not a building or the clergy or leaders of the group. It is not some kind of business enterprise. It is a group of people and no more than this.

NINE POINTS (POINTS 1-4 or 3)

Now, in the time we have left, let’s begin to consider some differences between the universal congregation of the Lord and local congregations of the Lord. I would like to compare what the New Testament teaches about local congregations to the list that we looked at last week showing what the bible teaches about the universal congregation of the Lord.

Our first three points go together… Let’s consider our first point.

#01 - CAN CONTAIN BOTH LOST AND SAVED PEOPLE

If you remember, we talked about the universal congregation of the Lord as consisting of only the saved. The universal assembly is all of the saved people.

But what is different with local churches is that local churches can consist of both lost and saved people.

I started making this point last week in showing a misconception that many brethren hold to that the universal church is comprised of all faithful local churches of Christ. I argued that one of the reasons why this is an incorrect view of the universal congregation is because, if it were true, this would mean that every member of every local church of Christ is saved. But this is not the case because it is often, if not always the case, that local congregations consist of those who are lost and those who are saved.

EXAMPLES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

For instance, let’s look at a couple of passages that show us examples of local congregations in the New Testament that had lost people within it’s number.

First, the church of Corinth. In , we see that the congregation at Corinth had a man within it’s number that was committing terrible sin — sin that even the pagans didn’t commit. He was having sexual relations with his father’s wife. But the fact that the church were tolerant of him and treated him the same as any other person in the group did NOT mean that this man was right with God. He was not in fellowship with God, and Paul instructs the church to withdraw from this man — to show him that He is outside of the body of Christ and is in the camp of Satan.

SARDIS

We could look at many other passages, but let’s consider at least one more. Look at the book of Revelation. In , we have Jesus’ letter to the church in Sardis. This church had a great reputation. They were known as a church that was alive! But in reality, Jesus says they are dead. Then look at verse 4:

“4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.” (, ESV)

Do you see what Jesus is saying here? He is saying that the majority of the church in Sardis is lost! The majority of them soiled their garments. The majority of them would NOT walk with Jesus in white because of their sin! Few of them, even though they associated with the church in Sardis, were members of the universal church!

It can be the case that there are men or women in a local congregation who are in sin that the rest of the group does not know about. Or as in the case with Corinth, there may be known sin in the group that is not being dealt with. It could be the case that most of the congregation is worldly and materialistic even though the congregation has a good reputation among brethren.

There may be people within a local church whose baptism has been accepted by the leaders of a church but their baptism was not done as is taught in scripture.

This should be sobering for those who are in a local congregation. As I said last week, the fact that we attend worship somewhere or consider ourselves to be a member of a local congregation does not mean that we are saved and more than me laying down in the middle of my garage makes me a car. If you have not obeyed the Gospel, you are not going to get to Christ through attending here with God’s people. You must obey the Gospel to be right with God.

And if you have sin in your life that you are not dealing with, you do not “make up for it” by assembling with the saints here. Meeting with God’s people doesn’t erase one sin. You need to repent of the sin that is breaking your fellowship with God. And if you are unwilling to repent of your sins, you are wasting your time being here to worship God.

If we took this even a step farther, keep in mind that it is possible as a congregation to be viewed as dead no matter what men may say about us. Just because everything may look good on the outside does not mean that we are alive. It does not mean that we are all ok with God on an individual basis either. If most of the congregation are Christians in name only, the Lord may come against us and remove our lamp stand just as He promised to do to Sardis and 4 other congregations in .

#02 - ONE DOES NOT HAVE TO ASSOCIATE WITH A LOCAL CONGREGATION TO BE SAVED

Here is our second point. In contrast to the teaching that you must be part of the universal assembly of the LORD to be saved, this is not necessarily the case with local congregations. It is possible, because of the physical circumstances, to not be able to associate with a local group of disciples.

Consider the Ethiopian Eunuch in ?

It seems like he is the only Christian at least for some time where he lives in Ethiopia. He would not have a local congregation to meet with unless he talked to people about Jesus and if people were converted. This is the case often in places where there are not any local churches. Someone may be converted and be the only Christian for some time in an area before they are able to bring others to Christ. Does this mean they are lost before this happens? Of course not.

Or also consider something we see in 3 John.

At times, the faithful can be unjustly “kicked out” of a local congregation, but this does not affect their salvation (). This is what Diotrephes did to faithful brethren in 3 John. He would not accept the authority of the Apostles, and because of this, he would cast out of the church those who desired to welcome those who were sent by the Apostles. Did this then mean that those who Diotrephes cast out of the church were no longer saved? Of course not.

Caveat:

But let me quickly give this as a caveat before moving to our next point. Although it is technically possible to not associate with a local group of Christians and still be saved, this does not mean that it is ideal long term to not be. If it is possible to meet with other Christians in the area you live (and most of the time it is possible), you should do so. There are just too many responsibilities that Christians have towards one another in scripture to say that you don’t want to associate with a local congregation. There may be a heart problem with someone if they say, “I don’t want to meet with a local church. I can do Christianity on my own.” This is not a Biblical mindset to have.

#03 - MEN KEEP THE “BOOKS OF MEMBERSHIP”

Our third point is the reason why the first two points are in this lesson. Why is it that there are both lost and saved people in local churches? Why is it that there may be times when faithful people of God are unable to meet with local churches: It is because the decisions of whether to accept someone into the local congregation is done by fallible men. There is a lot of human judgment that must be used in making decisions about who should be part of the group. There are judgement calls to make when making the decision whether or not to accept someone was baptized according to scripture. And sometimes, men make the wrong decisions.

Our desire as a group of God’s people is to be as close to the ideal as we possibly can be, and that ideal is: everyone we accept into our number and believe is a Christian actually is, and as it is the case that Christians are not being faithful to the Lord, discipline needs to happen so the rest of the church is not negatively affected and so that those who are in the local congregation are those who are faithful to the Lord. We need to do due diligence in making sure that we associate with the faithful people of God.

#04 - BEGINS WHEN MEN DECIDE TO WORK TOGETHER

Next, we saw last week that the universal church began some time around 33AD, but this is not the case for local congregations. As people became Christians in different geographical areas, they would find others who adopted this new faith in their city, and they would associate with this group and would work with them.

There was not a local congregation in Phillipi until Paul preached the Gospel there. People were baptized into Christ and were added to the universal church. And then all those who were saved began to work together and to meet together as a local church. Paul sends them a letter later describing the congregation as “all the saints in Phillipi, with the overseers and deacons.”

Misconception: I don’t know if you have ever heard of or seen on a sign outside of a place where a local congregation meets “established 33AD.” There are places that this is the case. Or brethren may, in comparing their local church of Christ to denominational churches as they study with people, say “our church began in 33AD while your denominational church began later, so this means that you are attending the wrong church.”

We need to be careful with this. Individual local churches did not begin in 33AD. You could argue that the Jerusalem church did, but no other local church began then. The universal church is what began around 33AD. If we would talk in a way that makes is sound like local churches were established in 33AD, this may show that we may believe the mistaken idea (and the denominational idea) that the universal church is made up of all local churches, and thus are saying “our denomination began in AD33.”

The universal church began in 33AD, local churches begin when men decide to work together as Christians and to begin assembling together.

CONCLUSION

Let’s go ahead and end here. We will pick up with our next point during the 11am hour. Let’s close in prayer.