ekklesia

Steve Long steve at allegrographics.com
Mon Jul 26 13:56:18 EDT 1999


>
>My problem with this is that, while I agree that Paul surely is inclusive
>in his conception of believers incorporate EN CRISTWi as all belonging to
>the SWMA CRISTOU, I have my doubts whether it is ever safe to say that
>EKKLHSIA in an authentic letter of Paul (personally I'd exclude 2 Thess,
>Eph, Col and the pastorals) refers to more than a local house-church type
>of congregation. Certainly Paul does not use SUNAGWGH, and in fact, I think
>that word is used exclusively of the Jewish local prayer and study meeting.
>In fact, I'm inclined to think that the usage of EKKLHSIA for the entire
>body of Christ is restricted to later-composed NT texts, but that's not an
>item for discussion in this forum.  I doubt we can find a clear instance in
>an authentic Pauline letter of EKKLHSIA in the sense of the universal body.
>
How about 1 Corinthians 10:32: APROSKOPOI KAI IOUDAIOUIS GINESQE KAI
ELLHSIN KAI TH EKKLHSIA TOU QEOU?

I guess its possible he's referring to a local body but the inclusive
nature of Jews and Greeks make me think he's referring to the universal
church. In 11:16 he refers to local bodies in the plural, so I would take
10:32 as an inclusive singular.

Steve


--Christian is a noun that doesn't need an adjective.--
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