Get It Right!

—also to Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier—and to the church that meets in your home:  Philemon 1:2 NIV

Church – But of course it wasn’t a church!  The word is ekklēsía, an assembly.  In particular, a non-religious assembly.  Not a synagoge—a religious assembly.  By now we all know why Paul chooses this non-religious word to describe what are clearly worshipping groups.  But there’s more to it than just avoiding the pagan connections to synagoge (which wasn’t Jewish in the first century).  It starts with the root word in Greek—kaléō.

kaléō, meaning “to call,” appears often throughout the NT, especially in Luke and Acts, less frequently in Mark and John. It may always be rendered “to call,” but often has the special nuance of divine calling or vocation.^[1]

We should also note that this word is often understood as “invite.”  But the real background for the term as it is used by the apostolic writers is found in the LXX.

1. 1. The main origin of the NT usage is to be sought in the LXX. The richest source is to be found in Is. 40ff. (cf. 41:9; 42:6; 46:11; 48:12; 51:2; cf. also naming in 43:1; 45:3).
   2. The Hebrew term is usually qārāʾ. The objective force of kaleín may also be seen from its use for words meaning “to take” and “to be.”
   3. The idea of invitation or summons to salvation is a common one in rabbinic writings. An ordinary word thus acquires special significance through the fact a. that God is the subject and b. that salvation is the goal.^[2]

We have often heard that ekklēsía means “the called-out ones.”  But that’s not the end of the story.  Now we discover that ekklēsía is distinct from common religious assemblies in the first century, has a built-in notion of invitation, contains the overtones of a summons, and is particularly focused on God’s provision of salvation (in Hebrew, rescue).  To be part of an ekklēsía is to be called, summoned, and invited by the sovereign God for the purpose of rescue from immediate danger.  It is to be different than the surrounding religious culture.  And everyone who is in the ekklēsía is there because they have been invited to be different.  You might even say that this is an assembly of non-conformists who exist only because they have responded to a divine invitation.  Everything else associated with “church” is foreign to ekklēsía.

Topical Index:  ekklēsía, church, Philemon 1:2

^[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 394). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

LXX Septuagint

^[2] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 395). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.