Overview of "Church" in the New Testament
Monday, February 17, 2014
5:12 PM
Terminology is important and theological terms always have a certain polyvalence that should be clarified.  The word “ecumenical” and “ecumenism” can refer to really any effort among Christians to step across boundaries lines that separate one part of the body of Christ from another.  The word ecumenism is derived from the Greek word oikoumene which refers to the inhabitants of the whole earth—the whole inhabited world.  In the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the author speaks of Polycarp praying frequently for the church in the whole world (5:1, 8:1) and also affirms Christ as “shepherd of the of the whole church throughout the world” poimena tas kata ten oikoumenen katholikes ekklesias (19:2).  The term evolved as Christianity was accepted within the Roman Empire to refer the convened councils that expressed the faith intended to be accepted by all Christians—i.e., the Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) and the creeds and agreements that emerged from them.  
 In the 20th Century, the term developed with a particular focus on regional, state, national and international organizations designed to bring together different denominations of Christians for cooperative purposes.  So histories and introductions of Ecumenism will focus a great deal of attention to the history surrounding the creation of the World Council of Church, National Council of Churches and the contributions of organizations like the YMCA and the YWCA.  When people use the word today they mean either this more particular manifestation of Christian unity expressed in organization or formal programs or more generally to the work dedicated to expressing Christian unity beyond or in spite of denominational division without formal organizational structures.  Ecumenism is different than interfaith dialogue.  As important as interfaith dialogue is, ecumenism functions within the shared theological affirmations and language system of Christians. Which points us first and foremost to the New Testament for a biblical understanding of Ecumenism.
Two Natures of Church 
A biblical understanding of ecumenism begins with a biblical understanding of the church.  The Greek word for Church is ecclesia. Ecclesia is a term that simply means assembly and is used outside of the New Testament (NT) with little or no theological connotation. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible[1]) uses the word ecclesia to refer to gatherings of the people for military, civil, religious, or other purposes.  When the Church named itself, it chose an ordinary and utilitarian name but within its own reflection the word began to taken on greater significance.      
In the NT, the word ecclesia refers to the understanding of the community of believers in Jesus Christ.  And it has two related but distinct uses: local and universal.[2]  Church can mean both a local congregation and the whole body of believers in Christ.  The only two uses of ecclesia by Jesus recorded in the Gospels seem to address this two natures.  In Matthew 18:17 Jesus was speaking of handling a disagreement between believers and discusses the final step being the involvement of the Church. The local congregation met regularly (Hebrews 10:25), had offices (Philippians 1:1), cared for one another in sickness (James 5:14) among other activities.  The local congregation appears to have been a tightknit gathering of people who served together and who through covenant relationship had bound their lives to one another in some way.
The other reference use of ecclesia by Jesus in the Gospel comes in Matthew 16:18.  Jesus had asked his Disciples who they confessed Jesus to be.  Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).  We might call this the universal church.  Jesus affirmed Peter’s response indicated that he would build his "Church" upon Peter OR upon Peter's confession of faith.[3]  Jesus commanded the Disciples to go into all the world and make Disciples (Matthew 28:19) and also emphasized the global nature of Christian witness before his ascension (Acts 1:8).  So, while the original vision of church certainly included the local congregation it never intended Christian Disciples to keep their head to the ground looking only at the local church.  This influenced not only their Christian mission and witness but also their collaboration with one another.  This larger vision of the Church appears in the New Testament as an interrelated network of faith communities (Colossians 4:16) that worked to facilitate Christian missionary work (2 Corinthians 8:1-7), settle disputes (Acts 15), and encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 1:7).  The universal church like the local congregation was formed and bound together by a shared commitment to Jesus Christ and through that shared commitment to an understanding that they belonged together.  Certainly ecclesia is not the only term used by early Christians to refer to themselves or their movement.  
This short overview of the term ecclesia is meant to illustrate in a small way the ecumenical understanding embedded in the New Testament.  Earliest Christians understood that faith in Jesus Christ brought a believer into communion with other believers in Jesus Christ both within the local setting and in the larger global context.[4]   A beautiful portrait of both senses of the Church is found in Paul’s greeting to the Church in Corinth:
To the Church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in ever place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:2-3.  
In the rest of this lesson, I want to focus on a few key texts that shed light on the 
Acts 15—The Council in Jerusalem
In some ways the book of Acts is about the Church crossing boundaries to share the Gospel and in some ways the book of Acts is about the Church redrawing the boundaries. As new boundaries were drawn, the early church had to think about what to do with the old boundaries.  Specifically, what do the people included within the new boundaries share with one another? What encircles them?  What are the limits of their freedom within the new boundaries?  
The events of Acts 15, the so-called “Jerusalem Council” refer to a gathering of Jewish Christian leaders gathered to settle the dispute of what ought to be required of Gentile Christian believers.  The Apostle Paul also recounts a similar conversation taking place (Galatians 2:1-10).  Scholars debate whether Acts 15 parallels the events recorded in Galatians 2:1-10.  The Anchor Bible Dictionary offers 5 possible parallels in Acts to Galatians 2:1-10: Acts 11:27-30; 15:1-30; 15:1-4; 18:22; and 11:1-18.  The fact that what Paul described in Galatians 2 could actually refer to several events reported in Acts points to the fact that the issue was lively.  
The underlying theological conviction of the early Christian was that Jesus came to announce that the God of Israel was the God of all and that all were welcome within the fellowship of believers.  Expressed in grand and general terms, this is the stuff of hymns.  Lived out in real and practical ways is the stuff of church board meetings. The original followers of Christ belonged to Judaism.  Yet, within Judaiasm there was a great deal of diversity.  There were people who maintained patterns that defined them as Jewish: eating kosher, observing Sabbath, circumcision, ritual washing and the observance of holy days.  There were others who were Jewish but had a looser commitment to these symbols of Judaism.  Acts 6:1-6 reveals that the early Christian community contained both those with a strong commitment to Jewish patterns and those who were more influenced by Greco-Roman patterns (so-called Hellenists).  Early conflict broke out between them and was resolved with the appointment of deacons  to ensure that everyone received what they needed. In Acts 8:26ff Philip is moved by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel to the Ethiopian Eunuch who according to the legal code would not have been allowed to come near the altar (Deuteronomy 23:1) but is nonetheless baptized into the Church (Acts 8:38).  Though this court official is the first recorded Gentile convert to Christianity his baptism appears largely unknown to the rest of the Church.  
Peter is the Apostle that Acts presents as really opening the door of the Church to Gentiles (Acts 10:1-11:18).  In Baptizing Cornelius, Peter was crossing a boundary that the Church had never witnessed Jesus cross.  This was indeed a new thing.  This story takes place in Caesarea (note the name CAESARea).  Cornelius—gentile, God-fearing, and good—was instructed in a dream to invite Peter to come and proclaim the gospel among the Gentiles in Caesarea.  Acts 10:28 points to the radical nature of the boundary crossing.  Balch writes, “We do not usually realize how radical it is when the ‘believers in Joppa’ (Acts 10:28) hear Peter characterize Cornelius as an allophyle and then baptize him.”[5]  Balch explains that allophyle is the Greek translation of “Philistines” who are characterized by LXX as worshiping idols, uncircumcised, and frequently at odds with the people of Judea.  Balch declares, “he is baptizing Goliath into the church!” This was an extraordinary thing for a Jewish believer in the one crucified under a centurion’s supervision (Luke 23:47) to accept much less accomplish.   
Peter was prepared for his own conversion by the vision he received in Acts 10:9-16.  Peter was hungry, fell into a trance, and watched as a sheet was lowered with all manner of “unclean” animals.  Peter refused to partake of the unclean animals saying, “By no means Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean” (Acts 10:14).  The response to him was that what God has made clean, you must not call unclean. 
The message points Peter to a mission to the Gentiles. The words katharizo (cleanse) and koinou (impure, unclean, common or profane) in 10:15 in reference to animals and emerge again 10:28 in reference Cornelius’s household.  Upon entering their house, Peter said to them, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him.  But God has shown me that I should not call any person impure or unclean.”  Peter’s culinary dream in 10:9-16 foreshadows the ecclesiastical reality in chapter 11 as the church accepts the  capacity of non-Jewish people to (1) receive the message of Christ; (2) receive the Spirit of Christ—we conveniently skip over Acts 10:44-48 because the Spirit of Christ was manifest was through the speaking of tongues; (3) and be baptized. 
Through this movement, the church accepts a reality that changes both its character and understanding of God.  Beverly Gaventa writes, “By means of the issue of hospitality, Luke demonstrates that the conversion of the first Gentile required the conversion of the church as well.  Indeed, in Luke’s account, Peter and company undergo a change that is more wrenching by far than the change experienced by Cornelius.”[6]  The church had to convert to this paradigm for itself--Do not regard as unclean any person God has made; any person God has loved; any person God has forgiven.  
When Peter is confronted by those in Judea for his actions, he offers a speech giving his account.  The evidence that Peter’s actions were right is lodged within the presence of the Holy Spirit as seen in the ecstastic tongues.  He concludes his speech, “So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God!” (11:17).  To which the people respond, “So then God has even granted the Gentile repentance unto life” (vs. 11;18).     And so, Peter’s speech signals his own conversion toward accepting Gentiles and indeed the church’s conversion on this point by saying, “Now I understand.” Peter and the early church were the first to witness the momentous shift in human history with the experience of Jesus Christ.  They were the first to try to make sense of it.  And they struggled to make sense of how that rearranged the traditions that had shaped and defined them for so long.[7]
So through the leadership of Peter, the Church that started in Jerusalem and was based in Judea that spread to Samaria (8:1-13), that had baptized one harbinger of the whole world through Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian court official, now had a local congregation in the household of Cornelius.  
With the emergence of the Apostle Paul and his missionary work, the evangelization among the Gentiles gained increased momentum.  Yet, Paul did not seem too intent on making sure that new Gentile converts observed all the customs of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.  Just as the church in Jerusalem had questioned Peter’s willingness to baptize a Gentile household so also the church in Jerusalem asked what might be expected of Gentile believers in terms of conduct.  The Church in Antioch received word from Judean Christians that the needed to observe the customs of Palestinian Jews namely circumcision (Acts 15:1).  However, it is also likely that they advocated for observance of the Sabbath, the Hebrew calendar, the commands regarding dietary purity and the segregation of Jew and Gentile persons.  Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to seek an answer from the Apostles there concerning the appropriate conduct of Gentile believers.  Was circumcision and all that it represented expected of Gentile believers in the Messiah?
Peter’s response (Acts 15:6-11) outlines the major theological theme of Acts.  The evidence that God had accepted the Gentile believers of Cornelius’s household came in the gift of the Holy Spirit not the yoke of circumcision (15:8).  “God made no distinction between them and us” (15:9).  Peter established an ethical principle drawn from a theological truth.  Christians are to see other people in a manner consistent with the way God sees them.  Salvation does not depend on people’s actions but on God’s grace (15:11).  Having established the criterion by which the faithfulness of Christian converts would be viewed—namely the presence of the Holy Spirit—the Jerusalem council then listened Barnabas and Paul narrate  “all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles (15:12).  The evidence appeared conclusive.  James defined the council’s response saying that they the ethical instruction to be given to the Gentile converts was that they should maintain theological purity by avoiding things pertaining to idols, sexual purity, and physical purity (Acts 15:20).  This challenge to the unity of the Church teaches us a few things.
The Church is the visible manifestation of God’s gathering work in the world.  Luke 15, the center of the Gospel of Luke, portrays God as one who seeks out that which is lost and gathers it in.  So also Acts 15, also the center of Acts, demonstrates what that looks like in the function of the early Church.  When the Church excludes those whom God includes, the Church stands in opposition to God and fails to accomplish its core mission.
The Church has a concern to understand itself in continuity with the whole narrative of Israel’s God and responsive to that same God’s active Spirit.  The evidence of God’s acceptance comes through the Holy Spirit’s work in people’s lives.  Yet, James’s declaration relates how all that is taking place had been anticipated by the prophets all along.  
One of the key ministries of the Ecumenical movement has been to have serious dialogue about how to balance continuity with core Christian doctrine with the call to embrace all who claim Christ as Lord and in whom the Spirit of God is evident.  Just as the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem understood their scripture as God’s gift to them so also churches involved in the ecumenical movement understand that their scriptures and to some extent their doctrines which are syntheses of scripture and their symbols that embody scripture are also gifts of God.  Part of ecumenical work is the effort to correlate the gifts that the Church has received from God in the past with the ongoing gift of God’s spirit in the present.  It has been the often difficult work of reconciling the evidence of the same Holy Spirit of God at work in all of the Church though not all the same doctrines, symbols or practices are shared.   
 God’s grace had been announced to the Gentiles.  Some received this message and were baptized into the Church.  The question became one of what they had to do once there.  
[1] I will try to use the designation Hebrew Bible in place of the term Old Testament.  By Hebrew Bible I do mean the 39 books of the Protestant Old Testament.  The name Septuagint refers to the Greek translation of these books along with some others that emerged in the 2nd Century BCE.  We sometimes call the books that appeared in the Greek Septuagint for which there are not Hebrew equivalents the Apocrypha.  However, I will use the term Deuterocannonical.  
[2] There are references to the church that identify regions or provinces: Judea (Galatians 1:22; 1 Thessalonians 2:14), Asia (1 Corinthians 16:19; Revelations 1:4), Macedonia (2 Corinthians 8:1).  They contribute to the understanding of the universal or global church or at the least to the understanding that early Christians understood that “the Church” involved more than just the people in their congregation.  
[3] For the purposes of this study, I will not try to make the distinction between Jesus's actual, historical words, and additions which are/were additions by the gospel writers or their sources.  Exegetically I assume that all four gospels are shaped by cultural and historical factors
[4] For more examples of the Church as a local gathering see: Acts 8:1
1 Corinthians 11:18; 14:19, 28; Philippians 4:15.  For examples of the Church as Universal body see: Acts 8:3; 9:31; 1 Corinthians 6:1; Ephesians 1:22; 3:10, 21; Colossians 1:18.  For examples of both senses of the Church used in the same verse see: Acts 20:28; Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 14:4; 3 John 1:6
[5] David L. Balch, "Accepting Others:  God's Boundary Crossing According to Isaiah and Luke-Acts," Currents in Theology and Mission 36, no. 6 (2009): 417.
[6] Beverly Roberts Gaventa, "What God Has Cleansed," in From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986).
[7]Study of this text deserves a fuller treatment of “partiality.”  Peter’s statement has some parallel OT passages:  Deuteronomy 10:17—“God shows no partiality and accepts no brides” following passage emphasize the need to demonstrate love to the aliens living in Israel.  Similar commandments are issued in by Jehoshaphat to newly appointed judges in Chronicles 19:7. More signficantly, in Sirach 35:16-26 the wisdom-writer offers an expanded portrayal of God’s justice where God shows no partiality.  Instead, “The one whose service is pleasing to the Lord will be accepted” (Sirach 25:30). James 2:1-12 like Acts, deal with shows of partiality of rich over the poor within the church.  .     