It is fitting to end a series about images of the Church by considering the term “Church” itself as the most commonly used word for God’s people under the new covenant. As is widely known, the word “Church” translates a Greek term that means “called out ones” (ekklesia). The basic meaning of the word finds expression in the single word assembly, as a way of speaking generally of any group of people singled out from others by virtue of them coming together around some common purpose, interest or identity.
For example when craftsmen in Ephesus took exception to the preaching of Paul, they came together in a riotous crowd. The description of the angry gathering reads, “Some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly (ekklesia) was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together” (Acts 19:32). The uproar ended when the town clerk dismissed the assembly (Acts 19:41). An ordinary, everyday term came to have specialized usage as a way of referring to Christian believers.
God’s assembly
A quick look at a concordance of an English language Bible reveals the frequency with which “assembly” or “Church” occurs in the New Testament. Jesus used it famously in His response to Peter’s great confession of Him as the Christ and Son of God, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church” (Matt. 16:18). We might say simply that the Church is Christ’s assembly. The opening words of both 1 and 2 Corinthians give the address of both letters as “to the church (assembly) of God that is in Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1). Thus we might say of the Church that it is God’s assembly. The Church is both God’s assembly and Christ’s assembly, inasmuch as Jesus declared in prayer to the Father, “All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine” (John 17:10).
Perchance the most obvious inference we are to make from viewing the Church as God’s assembly is an emphasis on God’s people having come together in a given place at the same time. We usually refer to such an assembly as a local church. Such a local gathering is in view in the admonition of James 2:2–3 about how to value each person who gathers, “If a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly (ekklesia), and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or ‘Sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”
Higher purposes
While people may often assemble for many causes or motivations, when God’s people assemble it is for higher or heavenly purposes. The Church assembles to worship God, to share the message of the gospel, to engage in ministry, to encourage one another in the Christian pilgrimage, to share Christian instruction and so forth.
The importance of the Church as an assembly is set forth in the exhortation of Hebrews 10:25 that admonishes us that we not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some.” Barnabas and Paul set a worthy example when they came to Antioch, where Acts11:26 reports “that for a whole year they assembled (ekklesia as a verb) with the church (ekklesia) and taught many people.”
Are we so faithful in assembling with the assembly?
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