What is a local church?The word “church.”Acts 8:1-3 - Saul persecutes the church, which is composed of men and women.Our English word “church” is translated from the Greek word ”ekklēsia“(1577), which appears in about 115 verses. Greek scholars describe it as follows:“the ‘called-out ones’ of God” (Mounce)“It was a common term for a congregation of the_ekkletoi_(n.f.), the called people, or those called out or assembled in the public affairs of a free state, the body of free citizens called together by a held (kerux[2783]) which constituted the_ekklesia_” (Zodhiates).“The noun_ekklesia_occurs over one hundred times, meaning ‘church,’ with the sense of a gathered community of God’s people assembled for worship. The word has only a few exceptional ‘secular’ uses” (Renn)”a calling out,i.e. (concretely) a popular_meeting, especially a religious_congregation(Jewish_synagogue_, or Christian community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both)” (Strong)“properly, ‘a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place; an assembly’” (Thayer).The Bible’s usage of ”ekklesia”It’s important to notice how a word isusedin its Biblical context.Compare “love” in II Samuel 13:1 and Matthew 22:37,39.Like virtually all words,_ekklesia_has a range of meanings, so we must see how the word isusedto understand what it should call to our minds.For example, compare Ephesians 4:4 and Romans 16:16 - is there on church/body or are there multiple churches?Israel in wilderness. Acts 7:38: Moses “was in thecongregationin the wilderness” (KJV: ”church”).Riotous mob. Acts 19:32: “some were shouting one thing and some another, for theassemblywas in confusion”; 19:41Legal court. Acts 19:39: “it shall be settled in the lawfulassembly”As we can see from the above, the word “ekklesia” was a neutral (non-religious) term. You have to look at the context to see what it’s talking about.Universal church. Matthew 16:18: “upon this rock I will build Mychurch”Saved people: Ephesians 1:22; 5:23; Hebrews 12:22-24; Luke 10:22The dead are in the church in the universal sense (I Thessalonians 4:16; Ephesians 3:14)Local church. I Corinthians 1:2: “To the church of God which is at Corinth”
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