Of course, if one’s view of the church is an organization like the Synagogues, then leadership is narrowly defined as being those individuals who oversee or superintend the organization, especially when they gather into one place. Interestingly, the Greek word archon is used to define Jewish rulers, imperial Rome (Romans 13:3), Christ’s rule (Romans 15:12)…
Today’s leadership is unquestionably linked to collective churches. You can rarely find a book on leadership without seeing the word “church” attached to it in the title or sub-title. Andrew Clarke explains, “Towards the end of the twentieth century, the designation ‘leadership’ became increasingly widespread in many churches as a collective term to describe…
For the first approximately two-hundred years of this new relationship in Christ (the ekklesia), there were no church buildings. Third-century apologist Minucius Felix wrote, “We have no temples and no altars.”[1] The people of God, though surrounded by pagan temples and Jewish synagogues, were the only people who did not erect sacred buildings for…
In this blog, we hope to show that the presence of saints was expected in certain households. The house was not only the place where brethren knew to be a place for prayer and fellowship, but it was also known by the enemies of Christ to be the expected location of gatherings in the name…
Being together is as natural as syrup on pancakes. Yet, let’s not assume that until they do gather, they are not the “called out body” or that meeting with each other infers the formation of a local church organization. I knew a family in Arkansas that consisted of nineteen children. The majority of children in…
If such brothers and sisters live in the same area, is there any doubt that they will be together when possible? Unquestionably, they will gather together because they not only have a common relationship and response to God, they have a common cause. To illustrate this commonality that unites us, imagine the similarity of other…
(1) “The church of Ephesus” in Revelation 2:1 is referred to as “the saints … at Ephesus” in Ephesians 1:1. Again, here is a local church (individual saints), but not a local church organization. If someone asked, “Is there a local church in that town?,” Paul would say, “Yes, there are saints living there.” They…
Some propose the idea that a universal church is nowhere taught in the Bible so that every reference to the church (assembly) is a reference to the physical gathering of people. Abrams writes, “However, it can be argued that Matthew 16:18 is referring to Christ founding the institution of local churches, not to the establishment…
The body of Christ, the called out (Greek, ekklesia) had its beginning in Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:2-3, Luke 24:47) because the gospel was first preached there. When one referenced “the called-out”, it was only the called-out living at Jerusalem for a time because that is where the seed of the kingdom had been sown. It was…
One interesting fact is that every time an ekklesia is restricted to a particular location, it is always in the singular. In other words, there is never a reference to more than one ekklesia in any given city. This is consistent with our view that the local ekklesia is a reference to saints in that…