The New Testament Meaning of Church

God revealed His Word, which is the special revelation of every and all of His Words by God the Spirit through human authors.  Those words communicate plainly the will of God to man, including the nature of the church.  The church is what scripture says it is through its cumulative usages in the New Testament.  What the Bible says the church is, is what it is, regardless of what occurs in the world or what men may say or have said that it is.

The New Testament shows that in its rudimentary sense, the church is local only.  The underlying Greek word, ekklesia, means “assembly.”  The church is an assembly.  It is always an assembly and that’s what the word means.  Even if the New Testament addresses the doctrine of the church in a generic way, a church is still what it is, an assembly.  And yet today, people will say and have said that the church is mainly not an assembly, but a mystical or spiritual universal entity, not local or visible.  How did this happen?  It didn’t start out that way.

Historical Theology

Historical Theology or the History of Christian Doctrine can show the changes in the meaning of words and doctrine.  The meaning of ekklesia and the doctrine of the church changed from its usage and teaching in the New Testament.  The church changed into something it was into something it was not and is not.  More than changing, outside influences through history actually perverted the meaning of church and the doctrine of the church.

The history of Christian doctrine tells a story of external factors.  One of the values of historical theology is chronicling the culture of the world, governments, and other societal elements that affected the beliefs of Christianity.  External factors have affected the interpretation, meaning, and doctrine of God’s Word.  Instead of reading out the plain meaning of the text of the New Testament, people read into the text something not in it.  This is another attack on scripture by Satan and the world system.

How Changes Occurred

One of the benefits of studying the history of Christian doctrine is investigating the changes in doctrine and how they occurred.  Outside circumstances affected how people understood the biblical writings and their teaching.  False teaching also begets more false teaching.  A major component to change is fear.  The Roman Empire opposed Christianity in the first three centuries and people adapted their belief and practice out of fear.  Scripture reveals how that fear can and will modify what people will believe.

In addition, teachers of scripture mix biblical teaching with human philosophies, such as Platonism and mysticism.  Through the decades and centuries since Christ, students of scripture allowed the influence of other writings to affect their understanding of the Bible.  Traditions sometimes took precedent over sound exegesis of the biblical text.  Predominant teachers held greater sway in the minds of people.  Powerful men put their thumb on the scale of their preferred scholars and instructors, giving them an oversized impact on contemporary thinking.

Once John finished writing the book of Revelation in the late first century, which completed the New Testament and the canon of scripture, apostolic authority ceased.  Scripture stood as the final authority.  Also, authoritative leaders were in individual churches, not anything greater than that.  The New Testament shows no hierarchy.  Pastor and deacons were the only church officers.  The pastor presided over their prospective, individual churches, each under Jesus Christ. Individual churches would fellowship with other churches of like faith and practice.

Just Individual Churches

The New Testament shows that churches cooperated with one another in non authoritative ways.  They passed around the New Testament books (Galatians 1:2, Colossians 4:16).  Churches met together to settle disputes with one another (Acts 15).  A church would host and provide hospitality to those traveling from other churches (3 John).  Several different churches might send funds to help out another church (1 Corinthians 16:1-3).  An individual church would send support to a missionary from another church (Philippians 4).

According to the New Testament, no other church had authority over another church.  Jesus was the Head of each church and accomplished that headship through scripture.  The demarcation between churches could and did impede the spread of false doctrine.  No evidence exists in the New Testament of one church having authority over another.  The spirit of the New Testament is serving one another (Philip 2:1-5, Eph 5:21, Matt 20:25-28), not domination over one another.

Authority in Individual Churches

God gives authority to pastors over individual congregations and nothing greater than that (Hebrews 13:7,17, 1 Peter 5:1-3, Titus 2:15, 1 Timothy 5:17).  Even the pastors with authority over their individual, separate churches (assemblies) also are themselves under the authority of their churches (1 Timothy 5:19-20).  After the end of the apostolic era, this is all someone sees in the New Testament.  Apostles had authority greater than one church, but no one else.  The apostle Paul still submitted to church authority though, the authority of the single church at Antioch (Acts 13:1-3).

What drew together the churches of the New Testament into unity was having the same Head, Jesus, the same source of authority, scripture, and an identical gospel, means of salvation. Jesus calls His church, “my church,” in Matthew 16:18.  He congregation distinguished itself from other assemblies by the means expressed by Him in the Gospels and then through His inspired followers in the rest of the New Testament.  Churches could become something less than or other than a church or a true church, like the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-21.

Separate Churches Protecting Doctrine and Practice

When Jesus wanted to bring back a church toward Him, so that it didn’t become a Laodicean church, He worked through individual messengers through an inspired message.  He didn’t operate through a greater hierarchical system.  One can understand how that having a so-called catholic church with hierarchical authority could bring immediate and widespread false doctrine, heresy, and apostasy.  With the head corrupted, everything below it would corrupt too.  The autonomy of individual churches could protect the truth using the means given only to individual churches.

Separate churches could protect the doctrine and practice of the church through separation.  God gave each church pastors to protect the separate church and church discipline.  Church discipline could not operate through anything greater than a single church.  It was designed for one church.  The Lord’s Table was given to a separate church, which had accountability with its own membership.  Body parts function in one location with the witness of all the other parts.  Parts of a body do not work together outside of a single locale, which is what “body” itself communicates.

Body, Local

The Apostle Paul in defining the body, didn’t say “we are the body,” but “ye are the body,” excluding himself (1 Corinthians 12:27).  That didn’t mean Paul wasn’t himself in a body.  He was, even as he says in Romans 12:5.  The oneness of a body though is in a particular body, not in bodies spread out all over the globe.  Unity occurs in churches, which were given by Christ the means to do so.

With the plain understanding of church in the New Testament, how did other teaching develop through the centuries?  This is a story and strongly relates to a few significant factors.  Judaism and then the Roman Empire persecuted the first church and then the churches proceeding from that church.  Judaism crossed regional boundaries and the Roman Empire was itself spread over the then known world.  The Roman Empire was mammoth and with tremendous military and political power.  It threatened the very existence of the first churches that started across its empire.

More to Come