FAQ

Q1.  Bringing up the “hedge” idea. I’ve heard of the hedges, but I’ve always heard them in a positive light, never heard that these were the things that lead to that verse Mark 7:8,9. !! wow. I have at least one friend that would disagree with you. But when I look at it, it makes total sense.

A. I don’t think I came up with this phrase… I actually heard someone comment on Mark 7:8,9 – referring to it as a hedge around the law – and it stuck with me.

Usually a hedge IS a good thing as in Job 1:10

Job 1:10Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

And people talk about putting a hedge around sin/temptation that you don’t fall in.

Q2. good point about the offering. I agree. Although there are those verses that say “share all good things with your teacher” (paraphrase) & “an elder is worthy of double honor” (I’m not sure what this one means, but I’m sure you’ve come across arguments saying this means money). I’m not sure what to do with those verses yet, haven’t really studied them.

A. Those could be referring to money and still have nothing to do with offering/tithing.

Or they may not be referring to money at all O_o but the general way we are to respect and care for those who are discipling us as we grow into disciplers.

The folks at http://www.jesuslifetogether.com/  have a great explanation for some of these verses.

http://www.ntrf.org/audio/index.php  in this section they have an mp3 about “church leaders” where you will find some information on the subject.

These two “organizations” are the closest I have found to what I suggest is NT practice. They use the term “house church” which I specifically feel is too confusing and causes us to think that God’s ecclesia is a meeting in a house as opposed to “a people for his own possession” “a royal priesthood” “a chosen nation”

These sites also advocate the Lords Supper as a daily feast. Although I agree that the early christians did eat together daily and may have called them  agape feasts, I do think they only celebrated the passover feast once a year and called it the Lord’s supper, bringing in all the parallels from the passover lamb and the bread and bitter herbs and wine as they relate not only to moses and the escape from egypt BUT ALSO to Christ and our escape from sin.

Q3. Great point about the fellowship thing. I would also add the many commands to love one another, bear with one another, serve one another, etc – these can’t happen in an anonymous, see-you-once-a-week, don’t-share-or-talk-to-each-other-much kind of setting.

A. Oh how much I desire to LOVE MY BROTHER. And how can I treat him  as a brother when he lives an hour away and I only see him once a week and in our short time together I never get to experience his needs or know him further.

This also raises a whole bunch of questions….like…

Aren’t all believers my brothers and sisters?

Why is he my brother who comes to a church 15 miles away more so than a believer who lives next door to me, or in my own house?

Who is it I should fellowship with more?

Q4. I agree about the body. Several scriptures refer to the importance of the body parts & the gifting to everyone. Yet we operate as though that’s not true (I would say). However, I don’t think I’d be so strong as to say “yet another reason church is a scripture-less hedge of tradition that keeps believers from obeying God, or gives them excuses not to” – I might soften this by emphasizing the seond part of what you said, that it’s giving them excuses not to obey. But I don’t think that’s conscious. I think if leaders gave them more opportunity, permission & ways to use their gifts, they would. Problem is, this is how we’ve done it for so long, so the leaders think what they’re doing is right, & they kinda like be the boss, running the show. And heck, if everyone else did all the work, why would we need to pay them? – this reveals the inter-related nature of offering & services & fellowship. I think offering is the linch-pin. Without money, you can’t have a dedicated pastor that has to run the show, or a building or 501c3 that needs to be supported, that needs to create programs, an awesome attractive event that we try to draw people from far away.

A. This is the problem that John L. Nevius ran into in his mission work with Hudson Taylor in China. By hiring indigenous believers to be unpaid leaders (who wanted to lead from love and desire in their heart) in their neighborhoods rather than over seas pastors to be paid leaders he got all kinds of slack, yet what fellowship has been able to last through Chinese persecution to this day? John L Nevious 3 Self house church movement. Our fellowship should be self governed and based on our DESIRE to love God and our neighbor and obey God. the church model is very different from NT practice.

Q5. I’m not sure about your interpretation of the woman who put her last pennies into the box. I think from that story Jesus is praising her for giving all she had. I don’t think that really changes your argument, but I’m not sure about that inerpretation.

A. http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/42-251_Abusing-the-Poor?q=poor+widow

or you can listen to an explanation by clicking on “listen” at the top

Q6. I’m not sure what you mean by ecclesia? I’ve heard different defintions of this word by different people. I haven’t researched it myself, so I don’t know. But I do know that several times the bible refers to a church in a city. And once or twice a “church” that meets in someone’s house. And then, of course,  it refers to all believers at “The Church” sometimes.

A.

- a church in a city

to find all the times where something happens to an ecclesia you need to look up ecclesia in the dative form.

The NT verses with ecclesia in the dative singular can all be found here

http://ecclesiologyproper.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/dative-singular/

here are the dative plural

http://ecclesiologyproper.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/dative-singular/

basically is scripture referring to all believers in a region or to one small weekly church service in that city?

I say it’s God’s multitude in that region and they assemble every day at each other’s house but their assembly is not called ecclesia – they are.

- a church that meets at a house

Romans 16:5 Greet also THE MULTITUDE at their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.

Colossians 4:15 Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and THE MULTITUDE at her house.

1 Corinthians 16:19 THE Asian MULTITUDES send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, WITH THE MULTITUDE at their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord.

so does ecclesia refer to the people at the house or to their church service? I suggest that it refers to the people who meet at the house and the word multitude fits that idea just great. Notice these verses don’t mention “assembling at their house” or meeting at their house but just that they are at their house. They are just believers who live there.

Q7.  I’m unsure about the thing on work…. um, just unsure.

A. I believe scripture teaches us to worship God in all areas of our lives. By how we love our families and how we work and how we care for our Spiritual  family as well. Worship involves obedience to God aswell as praising with music and understanding scripture.

The verses about work are on my site…. you will have to read them and decide for yourself. I think they seem to suggest that we all work hard to provide for ourselves and families AS WORSHIP to God. It seems to me that the NT believers worshipped God every day and worked normal hours as opposed to the church model where we work every weekday and worship God only on Sunday. In Acts chapter 15 obeying the Sabbath was not a requirement given to gentiles by the apostolic leaders. even if we were not to work on the Sabbath that would be a Saturday and not sunday. Even then that would not take away the NT practice of worshipping God every day, individually and corporately.

Q8. Unsure about “ecclesia is not something you do, it’s something you are” – can you help me with the scriptures, definitions …. the arguments that lead you to this conclusion?

A. thats simple :D

Do the verses in Scripture refer to people or to an object like a church organization or church service?

Acts 8:1 And Saul approved of his execution.  And there arose on that day a great persecution against THE MULTITUDE who were in Jerusalem, and THEY (plural) were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the messengers.

Acts 8:3 But Saul was ravaging THE MULTITUDE, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Question. Was this a persecution against a WHAT or a WHO?

Acts 20:28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you care-takers, to care for God’s MULTITUDE, which he obtained with his own blood.

Question. Are we to care for a church service/assembly or organization OR ARE WE TO CARE FOR PEOPLE?

Romans 16:5 Greet also THE MULTITUDE at their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.

Colossians 4:15 Give my greetings to the BROTHERS at Laodicea, and to Nympha and THE MULTITUDE at her house.

Question. Are they supposed to greet a church service, meeting assembly or are they supposed to greet PEOPLE?

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved THE MULTITUDE and gave himself up for HER,

Question. Do I need to ask WHAT Christ gave His life for or WHO Christ gave his life for?

Ephesians 5:29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does THE MULTITUDE,

Question. Christ cherishes PEOPLE

Acts 11:22 The report of them came to the ears OF THE MULTITUDE (that in Jerusalem) and THEY sent Barnabas to Antioch.

People have ears

Acts 12:5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God BY THE MULTITUDE.

People pray

Acts 15:4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed in BY THE MULTITUDE, and the messengers and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.

They were welcomed by people

2 Corinthians 11:28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for THE MULTITUDES throughout.

Question. is Paul burdened for a religious conference or for people?

1 Thessalonians 2:14 For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s MULTITUDES (in Christ Jesus) who are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,

Question. Did they imitate religious organizations/ church services, assemblies or PEOPLE?

2 Corinthians 1:1 Paul, a messenger of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,  TO GOD’S MULTITUDE residing in Corinth, also all THE SAINTS who are in the whole of Achaia:

Paul uses the words multitude and saints as synonyms

…and on and on. Ecclesia always refers not to a what but to a WHO. I am so frustrated because I am not the only one saying this. I have heard this from many famous teachers including Paul Washer who say things like “the ecclesia gather at the church” and that the ecclesia is people not an organization. BUT THE FRUSTRATING PART IS THAT THEY DON’T TAKE THEIR WORDS TO THEIR LOGICAL CONCLUSION

because if ecclesia is not church THAN WHAT IS IT???

my tears and prayers struggling with this subject have not been in vane.

I first thought that by understanding the GREAT GREEK ECCLESIA that existed around the time of the Septuagint and NT writings would give me a hint and I thought that ecclesia was referring to a kind of court or meeting but then I found the word ecclesia doing things in the New Testament that courts or meetings could not do. Like IMMITATE EACH OTHER and feel burdened.

The best answer came when I found a site that talked about ecclesia’s relationship to the Hebrew word Qahal. After researching all the passages that have the word Qahal I found SOMETHING AMAZING@!@!!!!

Qahal is used in Genesis to refer to the promise that God would give to Abraham (A MIXED MULTITUDE) a single unit or many races.

http://ecclesiologyproper.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/genesis/

This is also what we see in the New Testament as the people who Christ died for “a people for himself”

The NT writers (knowing the greek Old Testament/Septuagint) better than the Hebrew scriptures were familiar with this use of the word ecclesia and that familiarity caused them to continue its use into their writings in the NT.

Q9. WHY TRANSLATE ECCLESIA AS MULTITUDE WHEN WE HAVE OCHLOS AND PLETHOS IN THE GREEK?

A.

#1 QAHAL MEANS MULTITUDE

Reading through Greek texts at persius.com taught me that the noun ECCLESIA was used to mean MEETING or COUNCIL MEETING or ASSEMBLY MEETING etc. Where the verb form meant gather together or hold a meeting etc.

I was excited to find this information and from then on thought that ecclesia should be translated the same way in the NT. I was wrong. I hit many syntax errors as well as other problems which are discussed further here => http://ecclesiologyproper.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/ecclesia-vs-assembly/

After going through many theories such as:

a. Ecclesia is “called out ones”

b. Ecclesia is “commonwealth”

c. Ecclesia is “government”

d. Ecclesia is “court”

e. Ecclesia is “confederation”

f. Ecclesia is “army”

I always hit syntax walls when it came to accusative (what can be done to the ecclesia) or nominative (what the ecclesia does in scripture) or dative or genitive plural etc…

Realizing that the NT writers did not decide to use the word ecclesia because of it’s relationship to the Great Greek Ecclesia sent me to prayer and tears because I felt that I had lost months and hours of research and was only hitting dead ends.

Then I came across an amazing explanation that I had never thought of before on some website that I can not find anymore. I think I was too excited with the discovery to document it. The writer explained that The NT writers did not choose to use the word ecclesia in their writings. The word had already been in use in their Old Testament Greek scriptures long before.

In about 250 BC there was a call for the Hebrew Scriptures to be translated into Greek. Today we call this translation the Septuagint or LXX (meaning 70) because as the legend goes, 70 jewish scholars were involved in the translation.

It was these 70 scholars that made the decision to use the word ecclesia to define the phrase God’s qahal (ha qahal Y’H'Vah). Why did they make that decision? The reason it is so hard to figure out why they made that decision is because the only manuscript evidence for how ancient Greek was used during that time period is found in POLITICAL DOCUMENTS and political documents are only going to use the word ecclesia to refer to political assemblies and meetings, which makes the Greek Old Testament basically our only manuscript proof text for this special use of the word ecclesia.

What I want the reader to understand is that the New Testament writers were Hebrew and in their mind when they used the word ecclesia in the New Testament they are trying to refer to the word QAHAL and know no better translation for that word.

My Japanese English students do the same thing when they find an English word that seems to match with a Japanese word or phrase they are fond of, they attach themselves to the use of it.

When I have trouble understanding a Japanese person’s English, all I have to do is imagine what they are trying to say in Japanese and then I can understand them.

This is why your Hebrew teachers in seminary will OFTEN SAY, “Learning hebrew will help you understand Greek” Because first language of the writers of the New Testament was not Greek but Hebrew / Persian-Hebrew (aramaic).

The word ecclesia can have many different meanings including assembly. But in the New Testament it is MAINLY used to define the idea of the word QAHAL that the Hebrew writers were trying to get across to their Greek readers.

Qahal refers to God’s qahal, which is the mixed multitude that He promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (many nations will come from you, through you I will bless all nations)

#2 WHY DO WE NEED OCHLOS WHEN WE HAVE PLETHOS

Since OCHLOS can be used to mean MULTITUDE, then why do we need PLETHOS to refer to MULTITUDE and if we have PLETHOS, then why do we need OCHLOS?

I live in Japan and speak japanese fluently and teach English here and I can’t tell you how many times I get asked this same question about English from my students.

Why do we need so many words to say the same thing?

Just check out a thesaurus. Synonyms exist! Here are all the synonyms for “mass”

crowd, horde, large group, throng, host, troop, army, herd, flock, drove, swarm, mob, pack, press, crush, flood, multitude.

All different words with the same meaning.

Why do we need the word HUGE when we have words like GIGANTIC or ENORMOUS?

On the other hand, why define ECCLESIA as ASSEMBLY when you can define SUNAGOGOS as ASSEMBLY?

#3 OCHLOS AND PLETHOS ARE NOT ALWAYS TRANSLATED AS MULTITUDE

many times the same translator will translate them as crowd or number or people (mat 4:25 esv)

When I translate Technical Japanese documents I have my thesaurus handy. It really helps me communicate from one language to another in a more natural way.

Nothing wrong with two words having the same meaning.