Ekklesia 05 - Local Congregations, Pt2

INTRODUCTION

EKKLESIA 05 - THE LOCAL CONGREGATION 02

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, and that this Greek word is not inherently a religious word. The word was used in the Greek speaking world to describe any group of people. The word is a collective noun that is nondescript. The word itself does not give any information about the group — whether the group of people were religious or not. Literal translations of ekklesia would be “assembly, congregation, a group or bunch of people.” This is how we see the word used in the Greek speaking world before, during, and after Jesus walked on the earth. We have seen in both the Septuagint and in the New Testament that this word is used to talk about secular and religious groups of people. It is used to talk about armies, political/judicial assemblies, riotous mobs, groups of sinful people, and it is used to talk about God’s Old Covenant people and His New Covenant people.

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 or business enterprises.

These are misrepresentations of the nature of the church. We need to keep in mind that these are not how ekklesia is used in the New Testament.

Whether we are talking about the universal or the local church, we are talking about the people.

OUR LAST LESSON

During our 9:00 hour, we began going through a list showing how local congregations are different from the universal church. We looked at 4 of the 9 points I wanted to look at today.

Our first three points went together…

#01 - CAN CONTAIN BOTH LOST AND SAVED PEOPLE

The universal assembly is all of the saved people, but local churches can have both lost and saved people…

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

Second, 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 and still be part of the universal church.

#03 - MEN KEEP THE “BOOKS OF MEMBERSHIP”

Fallible men decide who to include and exclude from local churches. Of course, we try to base these things on what is taught in the New Testament. But mistakes are often made.

#04 - BEGINS WHEN MEN DECIDE TO WORK TOGETHER

The last point we looked at in our first hour is that, unlike the universal church which began in 33AD around the time of Pentecost, local churches only begin when Christians living in a specific geographical area decide to begin working and worshipping together.

Now, let’s move on to our points for this lesson. Points 5-9…

#05 - ADDED BY ASSOCIATING YOURSELF W/ THE GROUP

As we talked about last week, whenever someone obeys the Gospel, the Lord adds them to the group of saved individuals — to His universal congregation. But this is not the case with local churches. You are not automatically added by the Lord to a local congregation when you become a Christian. Each person upon becoming a Christian needs to decide which local church they want to work and worship with, or if you want to use the terminology — to become a member of… I am fine with this terminology as long as we understand that the local congregation is not an “organization” you become a member of. Instead, it is a group of people that you become a part of or decide to associate yourself with. It’s not an organization, it is a group of people you are joining.

Misconception: There is a misconception among people that whenever someone is baptized they are automatically added to a local church. This is a misconception. You are not baptized into a local church. You are baptized into Christ and are at that point added to the universal church, not the local church. This type of thinking is common in denominations. Someone is often baptized into the denomination and into the local congregation of the denomination at the same time. They automatically become members of both.

But that is not the case when we talk about local churches in the Bible. Yes, it is often the case that those who are baptized by one of us do work with and worship with this local group, but it is not because they were added to it by their baptism. It is usually because they live in this area or know someone who is part of the congregation.

It is possible that someone could visit one of our worship services, decide to get baptized, and then make the decision to associate themselves with another local congregation — not this one. I think we would understand this if they lived in another state in the country or another city in this state, they may decide to associate themselves with the closest congregation to where they live. They would not be added to the local congregation here by default because someone who associates with this church baptized them.

If I met someone at a local coffee shop who lived in another town (such as Boone or Ogden), and they decided to get baptized because I shared the Gospel with them, if I knew where they lived, I would tell them of the closest congregations to where they live, and they would have the option of which local congregation they wanted to work with and worship with. If they lived in Boone, I would tell them about the group that meets here and the church that meets in Ogden. If they lived in Ogden, I would probably encourage them to work with the group there. If they lived closer to Grinnell, I would encourage them to go to Grinnell, and so forth. This is what my practice would be as a servant and evangelist of the Lord.

#06 - DEATH DOES AFFECT MEMBERSHIP

When we die, our membership in a local congregation ends. Just as when Stephen died, he was no longer able to have any earthly association with the Jerusalem church (). This is the case for all who leave this life. At some point, if Jesus doesn’t return first, we all will case to be able to associate with a local congregation on earth.

This point brings along with it another important thing to remember about local congregations — they are temporary. Unlike the universal church which is eternal. It will always exist. Local congregations at some point will come to an end. They are a means to an end. We will talk about this point in a later lesson, but local congregations are meant to equip God’s people and to prepare them for eternity. At the end when all of God’s people are in His presence, local churches will no longer exist.

#07 - THERE ARE MANY

Our next point: In contrast to the idea that there is only one universal congregation - one body of Christ, there are many local congregations. This idea is probably the easiest to understand out of all of these points. It is almost unnecessary to make it. The fact that ekklesia is plural in many verses in talking about local groups of Christians implies that there is more than one.

In , Paul tells the Romans that the “churches of Christ” greet them. Paul here is talking about all of the local congregations of groups of Christians that belong to Jesus.

Also in Paul writes to the churches in Galatia. He is writing to multiple churches in the region of Galatia. There are many other passages we can point to. There are clearly many local congregations — at least one per city where there were multiple Christians (and sometimes more than one local congregation in a city).

#08 - THEY HAVE EARTHLY ORGANIZATION

A local church, when scripturally organized, will have elders and deacons ().

In the local congregation in Phillipi, there were both elders and deacons. In his letter to them, Paul says in :

“1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:” (, ESV)

tells us that as men like Paul and Silas travelled from city to city, they “appointed elders… in every church,” and “with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” (, ESV).

Also in and 28, you see Paul say these things to the elders from the church of Ephesus:

“28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” (, ESV)

Elders are also described (these are not titles) as shepherds, overseers, and pastors-teachers () in our English New Testaments. Their role is to oversee, care for, and feed the local congregation that they had among them (). They are shepherds who serve in one local congregation, and they submit to and follow in the steps of the Chief Shepherd in caring for the sheep.

The deacons were appointed to act as the leading servants in the local congregations. They would be appointed over specific services among the brethren where they were.

This is the organization that the Spirit set up for each congregation, and He gave the qualifications of each so that the right type of men could fulfill these services.

#09 - CAN BE DIVIDED

Local churches can easily be divided over doctrine or personalities.

Corinth

This happened to the congregation in Corinth. Paul spends the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians talking about the divisions within the congregation, but their division was seen in other areas that he talks about in the letter - in their use of spiritual gifts, in their partaking of the Lord's Supper, and the list could go on and on.

In , we see that there were divisions, or literally, sects w/in the Corinthian church based on allegiance to a specific teacher or preacher. And even Jesus was just thrown in as just one of the teachers that they could claim allegiance to…

We may look at the list and think, well at least one of these groups were right. At least one was saying, "I am of Christ." But I believe what we see in this passage was that they were all wrong. All of these groups had this sectarian spirit that was not just claiming to be part of one of these sects, but they were, as is seen in chapters 3 and 4, were being arrogant and boasting about the teachers they were following, while looking down on those who were following another teacher.

It is these types of division that Paul shows us is displeasing of God. Paul is not condemning denominationalism in , he is showing God’s displeasure with local churches splitting because of pride and arrogance and because of a love of men and false doctrine.

TODAY

When local congregations split or divide over doctrine or over sin, there is always someone guilty of sin. Most of the time both groups have guilt in the split.

And surely this does happen today. It doesn’t take too much time looking back in the history of local congregations that have their origination due to the restoration movement to see how congregations have split over so many issues. What can you collect funds for? Can you send money to institutions to help orphans or widows. Can you use instruments in worship? Does the Bible authorize having Bible classes or Sunday school? Does the Bible command multiple cups or one cup for the Lord’s Supper?We could add to this list for the rest of the day! All of these have been issues that local congregations have sinfully divided over for hundreds of years. They have been unable for so much time to overcome disagreements and to come to a common understanding of scripture, and have in the process, maligned local congregations that have Christians within them that have different viewpoints on these issues. No one can look at the fighting among Christians in local congregations over the years and come to the conclusion that God is pleased with all of the division and with the inability to show humility and working towards unity. There is a denominational spirit among those that claim to be “Christians only” also.

But keep this in mind: and this is an area where the church in Corinth can put local “churches of Christ" to shame! What is encouraging about the division within the congregation in Corinth is that the overcame it. You can say so many negative things about the congregation, and usually our emphasis when we talk about them is negative. But Paul’s second letter shows how they had repented and turned things around. They overcame many of the issues they had. The fact that the second letter is not to the Northside church in Corinth and the Southside church in Corinth shows a lot of good things about the resolve of the church to come to a common grounds on the issues that divided them.

May their example be something local churches consider as they deal with division. May their example challenge us here if we ever have issues or people that threaten to divide this local church.

CONCLUSION