Going to Jesus

Daily Thoughts

 Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:

• Collection

  Thoughts for the Morning Thoughts for the Evening Random Thoughts

• Month

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• Day

  03-01 “I Will Answer ALL Your Questions.” 03-02 The Will of the Flesh and the Will of Man 03-03 Self-will and Strong Will 03-04 The Danger of Liberty 03-05 A Chastened Man 03-06 Reconciled 03-07 “Reconciled” Response 03-08 “Reconciled” Response 03-09 One Way 03-10 “One Way” Response 03-11 A Checklist For Staying Free 03-12 Everything Jesus Is 03-13 Becoming An Unbeliever 03-14 We Cannot Even Love God 03-15 Seeing The Father 03-16 “You Are Still A Proud People” 03-17 'You Are Still A Proud People: Response 03-18 No More Church 03-19 “Church” 03-20 Because God Did Not Reveal The Truth 03-21 The Death Penalty 03-22 False Teachers 03-23 Leave The Saving To God 03-24 “That They Might Be Damned” 03-25 “A New And Living Way” 03-26 “Hard To Understand”? 03-27 Saving Love 03-28 With What God Is 03-29 Loving The Feelings 03-30 True Fasting 03-31 God Is Humbler Than Man

 

Thought for the Morning
3-19

“Church”

Pastor John

Me again. Can I have some more info on the word “church”? Thanks.

Manuel

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Hi Manuel.

The word “church” comes from the Greek word, “kuriakon”, which means, “house of a lord”. It was used by ancient Greeks to refer to any building that was dedicated to any god they worshiped, whether it be Zeus, Hera, Apollo, or any other. Any heathen temple was correctly referred to as a “church”. In modern usage, it is the same. A Jewish temple is a church; a Muslim minaret is a church; a Buddhist temple is a church; a Christian house of worship is a church; etc.

No writer of the New Testament used that noun (kuriakon). It is not found anywhere in the New Testament Greek. The Greek word that Christian scholars have translated as “church” (ekklesia) is actually the word for “assembly” or “congregation” or “called-out ones”.

King James commanded his translators to use the word “church” because the powerful churchmen of his day wanted him to do that, and he needed their political support. Some godly men, such as William Tyndall, refused to use “church” in their translations because of its association with Catholicism and the Church of England. He was arrested, condemned, and executed for daring to do such a thing.

Were not the word “church” so closely associated with the church religion of Christianity, it might not be all that bad as a choice when describing the household of faith. After all, we are “the temple of God”, and that makes our bodies a kind of “building dedicated to a lord”. But after all these centuries of being polluted by Christian ties, the word “church” carries too much ungodly baggage to be appropriate as a reference to the saints of God.

I hope that helps you understand why we have rejected the word “church” as useful for communicating the pure and holy faith of Christ Jesus. God is calling His people to come out of church religion and to serve Him in spirit and in truth, and abandoning our former attachment to “church” is a part of coming out.

May God help us do that, Manuel, with all our hearts, so that we may find mercy in His eyes in the Day of Judgment.

Pastor John