What is the Church, Part 1

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What the Church Is and Why Definitions Matter

We believe that the church is made up of regenerate people who meet for the worship of God and Are called the body of Christ.

Welcome to the rap report with Andrew rep report. We provide biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity in the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church go to striving for eternity org.

What is the church? I mean, there's so many things that come to people's mind when we talk about the church. Some people think of it as a building, you know, that's the church. You know what? There is something we refer to as a building that we refer to as a church because that's the place where we worship God.

But is that really the church? Is it is it a building or is it the organization like the Church of England? Is it is it a Denomination Or is it the clergy you have that with the you know, Roman Catholic Church?

Do they think that it's the clergy that are the church? What is the church? Well, that is what bud and I are going to be discussing over the next couple of Podcasts because there's no way we can go through this all in one episode.

If you want to get more information about what we're speaking about though today You can find it in some heretical book written by a crazy nut called. What do we believe? Why are you laughing at that bud?

Oh, that's right, I forgot about that. Yes. Oh, he's a great great guy. I live with him all the time. But yes, you could you could get more information about what we're discussing in my book. What do we believe?

We're actually going to be going through chapter 8 the Doctrine of the church over the next couple of episodes. And so as we do this is one that I think bud there's a lot of Discussion on what is the church nowadays and it has been for much of Christian history.

Don't you agree?

Oh, I absolutely agree. I think of a quote from Thomas Manton, I think who said that Division in the church breeds atheism in the world. And if you look at what's going on in in the church contemporary to us now it's just crazy and There seems to be anything and everything that passes for a church.

Yeah, and and we can see as we'll go through historically looking at it, but there there is confusion Amongst people today even those who attend a church service. That Kind of wonder what is the church?

I mean I mentioned some there in the opening you you have some that think it's a building. Some who you know think it's the denomination or the clergy. Some that are going to define it as some Institutionalized religion acting in a political or social way.

Right, so there's a lot of different views a lot of different incorrect definitions. But we have to start with good definitions to have discussions, especially in areas where people are going to disagree.

That's true. And let me just ask a question. I go to you just did. Let me ask a second question. I Go to a church and Andrew it does not have a steeple on the top of the building. Now, is that a legitimate church?

What doesn't have a bell because it needs to have the bell even if it doesn't know right? No bill either. Yeah. Now that's that's only because you're from the South see in the in the north. We don't have that issue because we we have Churches that don't want to say that they're a church, you know, they're a fellowship or they're just you know.

Their elevation. Well, what is that you in an elevator?

Well, what is that? It doesn't even tell you what it is. Bread of life. I thought you you were defining church by Stephen Furtick or something.

But but you have people that get away so you you have this Wide range of what people think a church building even should be. Should it have a steeple or do we got to get so far away from the traditional stuff?

That we don't even say we're church. Because it started by saying well we're fellowship now, I can't even say that. Because the new hip thing is to not have anything. Don't don't say community. Don't say fellowship.

You got to say bread of life, which is one of them up in my neck of the woods here. You know things like this that are you know, really supposed to be engaging with culture. Which is part of the problem I think because this is why we're having to address things like this because What is supposed to be the church Has lost its meaning and definition and therefore has been focusing on engaging the culture I would say in the wrong way.

Because they're trying to be like the culture to reach the culture and I think that the culture is gonna have a more effect on the church when you're trying to act like them. To try to reach out to them because why why would the world want to be going to a church?

That's just like them already. What do you have to offer? Friends they can find that in a bar. Right. I mean, it's like it seems that what many that claim to be a church want to do is say That they can offer the same Friendship and fellowship that you can have in the bar, but in a place with more morality.

It's a better social club, I think that's true. I mean you've got an you know, we're wired made naturally to be legalists and Knowing that there is a God even those atheists that would deny. There's a God.

We know that they believe there is they know there is but we're legalistic enough to know wow I need to be doing something that's Gonna soothe my conscience and if it motivates me personally to achieve my dreams and my goals and aspirations all the better.

Ekklesia in Greek and the Changing Meaning of “Church”

Let me read you this. From a great churchman. Okay. Wait now read the one from Andy Stanley. Listen to this now, this is what passes for church today and you know it we know it but here's the quote. People are not on a truth quest.

They are on a happiness quest. They will continue to attend your church Even if they don't share your beliefs as long as they find the content engaging and helpful. That's contemporary Christianity today, I think I prefer.

MacArthur's quote John MacArthur's quote and now I'll paraphrase it because I don't have it right in front of me. But he said something like this If you have people that attend a church They shouldn't feel comfortable.

They should either want to get out on because of conviction or get saved. You know, I think that's more accurate. So we have to get to what is the church? I mean, I think this becomes an essential thing when discussing anything definitions matter especially in the area of theology.

If you have a wrong definition then You can go any kind of direction, but you may get to the truth. This this same way that a broken clock is gonna be right twice a day so Proper definitions are important.

So there's a lot of people that make a big deal of the term church. Now the word that we refer to in church in the Greek New Testament, it comes from a Greek word ekklesia and There's a lot of people that make a big deal of what ekklesia is and the term itself Is originally used in Ephesus.

It's from the Greco Roman Empire World and this the idea of the the church the ekklesia. It was used Initially to refer to a voting when people would get together for the purpose of voting and You know, we see it used over a hundred times in the New Testament and We'll see it in the Old Testament as well when we look in the spittuage in the Greek translation and As you you see that it it refers to an assembly a congregation an army or a crowd.

So it's there wasn't any special Meaning to it before the time of Christ the way that we try to do it today. And what we're trying to do for you that are listening as you as you hear us. I Want you to think about the fact that this term has changed over time and that's what we want to do with this is show you how the meaning of the church what church is has morphed as it's become more and more specific through time and We have a stronger and stronger meaning of it because when we refer to the church today We're not referring to a body of of people that gather together for some legislation for some voting act.

When we go and to the election booth, we don't call that the Ekklesia but that was what it initially was initially it was a Regularly summoned a legislative body or assembly. It was a casual gathering of people for for some sort of assembly or Referred to a people with a shared belief a community or a congregation.

You see what we often refer to as church would be more be what is often referred to as congregation a lot of times in the Old Testament and so We got to understand that initially in the time of Christ.

The word didn't have the meaning that people will use today. Why is that important? Well, let me let me explain this the reason I think it's important is but we're gonna see Matthew chapter 18 and Jesus Christ is going to refer to how things should be run in the Ekklesia the church.

But the church wasn't established yet. Right that didn't happen till Acts chapter 2.

Covenant Theology, Dispensationalism, and Israel and the Church

Yeah, and You know, it's interesting just as You study the word Ekklesia in the New Testament. It only shows up three times in the Gospels and they're all three in Matthew and the two times That you're speaking of in Matthew 18 in the context of church discipline the first time the Lord mentions it in response to Peter's confession in Matthew 16, so that's.

That's very interesting. So there's a couple different views on this. There is the view which clearly Jesus is God so he knows everything. So he knows he's going to establish a church. That's true. But you know, we'll get into this in in the later episodes, I'm sure.

We'll just touch on it now, but there is this the distinction we're gonna see in the different ways people view what the church is. We're gonna refer to terms of covenant theology and Dispensational theology.

Those are the two main ones I know I just want to do a quick step back for a second because we're talking about precision in definitions and Covenant theology is is really used for something that it's not so covenant theology was formed back when with the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages and The Reformers reformed that that's actually what's called reformed theology and What what most people refer to as covenant theology is what's historically referred to as?

Reformed theology and now what people refer to as reformed theology they really mean Calvinism, but they only mean the Calvinism within the specific circle of Soteriology the study of salvation. So it's really hard nowadays to navigate these circles because terms have changed meanings and if you're someone who studies the history and The the terminology it can get confusing because you want to use as I do I want to use the more historical view definition of these views and yet if I do that people don't understand that.

So when I'm using the term Covenant theology, I'm not referring to that which was started in the Catholic Church. But to what people today refer to it mostly as which is really the reformed a theology that that way of interpreting scripture.

That is not the Roman Catholic view, but they reformed it and put it in a on a better trajectory than the Catholic Church had so. That's what I'm referring to and I'm taking that time just so that you realize that when you use Terminology you have to understand what people mean by it and I want you to know what I mean when I speak to you.

About these terms, so I'm gonna use the term covenant theology because it is what is often used today and when I'm doing that I'm referring to the the really the body of believers after the the Reformation that are looking at this way of interpreting the scriptures and the big distinction we're gonna make here is between the covenant theology and Dispensational theology because one big area of how they interpret the scriptures different is the area of the church so in covenant theology.

You're going to see that they would say that the church is seen in the Old Testament by those believing saints. That were part of the nation of Israel. So let's think about this you have the nation of Israel a large group of people, but not all Israel were believers and so Paul would say not all Israel is Israel referring to a subset of the nation of Israel that were believers and.

The covenant theologians would say that that was the church in the Old Testament. So the church does not refer to all of Israel. This is a misnomer I think people make. Against covenant theology that would be in a dispensational camp.

They they'll try to say that. You think that all of Israel was the church? That's not their argument, and if any of you made that argument against the covenant theologian stop. If you have to resort to a straw man argument to win your argument, then you're already on shaky so.

Yeah so no, but the dispensationalists would see this different because they would not see a Church in the Old Testament. They would see the nation of Israel with a large body. But there was a subset of believers within the nation of Israel.

Then you have a church, which is a separate institution. Now you'll hear some covenant theologians that will that will refer to it as two administrations Old Testament New Testament. We're a dispensationalist would refer to it as Israel and the church, but I hope you notice there's a lot of similarity there and.

And this is what I think we end up seeing is there's a lot of people who who end up fighting over these things. And just it's it's not. It's not always clear what they're fighting over because I think a lot of times.

They're not listening to each other long enough to realize let me give you a for instance, but I did an episode of the rap report on on the whole issue of the Sabbath and I. Okay, I admit I was poking some jabs at the guys.

Well, I was doing it with Colleen who's a Presbyterian and referring to some things that you know that she had said on her podcast theology gals and I have a tendency to kind of poke some fun over at the guys at theology driven and.

The you know because they I mean they claim that they're driving around in a car and. And doing theology and they say that they have to be in a car because they have you know, they have noises like this.

So they sound like they're in a car. You know, there's some street, you know that you get some street noise, you know, so that's their claim. I say I could do that right here. Um. Yeah. And so, you know, well, I'm you know, I might need to pull over, you know, because maybe maybe.

You know, there might be a you know a crash or something so, you know, we can make those sounds but I've joked with the guys at theology driven in fun and. They did on my one episode on the Sabbath. They did like three episodes.

To where they were responding directly to my episode and then one where they played like a sermon and. They were saying how I was completely wrong. And then we got together in DC and we sat down and all of us regret that we didn't record that conversation.

Because at the end of the conversation they were like Andrew you could agree completely with us and I'm like, no. No, you agree completely with me. But it took time instead of just responding to one another it took time for us to sit down and and Break these issues down to understand what we mean by what we say and that's important to do.

And so there are times where we have to do that and. And that's really what I want us to do here with these terminologies is to try to understand. I actually think that what you end up seeing is there's not as much disagreement as many would like to believe and.

You you either way. Okay, we're gonna get later. We'll talk about the local church and the Universal Church and what those mean. But those who understand that terminology and you hear especially if you you're holding to a covenant theological position.

You think about the fact that we would say that there's a church a Universal Church those who are saved. But then there's a local church. There's this people that gather together and call themselves part of the church that not all of them are saved and You see that distinction within the broad definition of church.

Well, that's the same thing you see within the broad definition of Israel. And so it shouldn't be too hard to see those together. I Issue of.

Israel and the church in the book there on page 163. If you're following along folks You've got a great quote there from John Calvin who addresses this and and you you write that it has been a cause of tension in the church and Regarding the interpretation of the Bible for 2 ,000 years.

This is the issue of the continuity and discontinuity of the congregation of Israel and the church. But let me read that that Calvin quote because it's very helpful. And and I think both sides would agree a dispensational or covenant sides.

Here's what Calvin wrote. From an early period it has been recognized that while the church is one and Catholic Catholic with a small C meaning unified. While the church is one and Catholic it presents different aspects or forms which call for differentiation and reference.

Thus already in the Bible itself. There is distinction between the Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church. It would be wrong to deduce from this a complete dichotomy as though the New Testament Church were something quite different.

Which began only at some point in the New Testament story, for example at Pentecost. On the other hand it would be pointless to deny that there are valid differences between the Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church.

A Legitimate distinction may thus be drawn. That's very helpful. That's very Consistent with what we see in Scripture Old Testament and New Testament.

Scripture, Continuity, and the Limits of Theological Systems

Yeah, and and this is why we want to take the time to break this down because there is a lot of not only misunderstandings of the different views people have but there's people who Will separate from one another and not not be able to work with each other over some of these things.

And so I do think some people make too big of a deal of this and that's why I want to go back to the historical meaning of it and show How this has changed over time because I think but what we see and this is why I did that in the book was To show that as we look at the way the word has has morphed.

There's people who use different definitions or are stuck in different time frames of thinking of how the word is used. And so we want to be clear when we use the term. We also want to be clear in what someone else Has as an understanding.

So if someone tells me they went to church today and It's a Sunday. I don't need to beat them up all the time. Well, sometimes you have to. Sometimes but you know Sometimes it could get in in trouble.

I had recently I had to apologize to someone. You know, he mentioned in my church and he was a pastor and I just said your church question mark Meaning that it's not it's not our church. I know what he meant by that and I'm just kind of Poking at him a bit but he thought it was a jab at him like as if I was saying something more than I was saying and It became a problem.

So it ended up leading into a phone call. But but that's the important thing is to know what we mean by these the terms here, right? So I'm not gonna beat someone up because they said I went to church today because we understand what they mean.

For those people that feel like we we have to correct everyone in things like that. Do you correct someone when they say I saw a beautiful sunrise this morning? Unless you're on the left coast and then you saw you know the sunset but Here on the East Coast. We have sunrises.

So is it really the sun rising? I Mean but do you usually walk around going I saw this most beautiful earth revolving. I.

Don't know that I've ever said that but we're getting into flat-earth territory here.

No, because they don't think it revolves at all so. That's right. So the first when we look at this the first meaning of the term that we've used for church It the that the word Ecclesia means called out or to call out.

Right, so it's it is a common term that we would use for a congregation and So as we look at that the the Congregation would have that you have the people that are assembled. You know, they they're called out for the the assembly.

For whatever the public affairs of state are and then you have this body of free citizens That are called together by a Herald, huh? So you have someone that calls them out and they come out and then you have this Herald who speaks to them.

Kind of sounds like something else that we would might refer to a church, right? It does. Yeah, so you see why people come up with the terminology the way that we would you know now. The the term that we end up using for this Is.

It's not that we can we don't see used of religious of heathen religious assemblies. But it is used for for Christian assembly. So there is a distinction that ended up being made historically. As we we look at this.

It's it we it seems that when Christ would refer to the Ecclesia The the church that he took this term that was used for voting and Almost seems like he started giving it a new meaning and that that new meaning got carried over when the church.

That we would think of today. Really we started forming in the in this first century. So You you end up seeing that the term did not in the time of Christ before Christ it did not have a specific reference To a congregation the way we would think of it today.

It just wasn't part of the the term so Just off of that recognize the fact that this this idea of a church changed. Because what we talk about a church today is not What we would speak of it back before the time of Christ we don't speak of getting together to vote as an Ecclesia as a church.

Okay, just it's it's something that I hope that you see that we're trying to lay a groundwork here of this terminology changing over time and so by indicating that this term changed it it gives us a View within that world that the word was used we can end up starting to see these changes occurring.

Now you you gave the quote from Calvin and I think that that's a it's good for us to see that. This is at the heart of what we you hear people talk about between covenant theology and dispensational theology.

Really? What is going on? There is this challenge? Between two words Continuity and discontinuity. So let me define those for those who may not know the terminology and may be new to that the idea of continuity is that there the church that we refer to in the New Testament is Old Testament Israel and the those believers in The church today would be the Israel of the Old Testament.

So in other words What they would end up seeing is that it's it's really the same. There's continuity. There's the same body. Whether it's called Israel or the church. So they would see the continuity there as if Israel and the church are one.

Then you have discontinuity that obviously not this is not continuity, right? It's it's The it's the breakup so that Israel is nothing like the church church is nothing like Israel. Now what I just gave you is the extremes.

But what you end up finding both in covenant theology and dispensational theology is that nobody really holds to the extremes. There's when when people would say well, you know, the covenant theologian has continuity between Israel and the church.

Well, not really it's it's not a pure continuity. They see some distinction. They see rules that were given for the nation of Israel that they don't follow today. Because that's not part of the church.

It's it's not for the church and For the dispensationalist, they're not gonna see that it's this complete separation. Because we can see that there's a lot of overlap in the way that God refers to the saved Believers of the Old Testament in the same believers in the New Testament.

And so we don't have to beat ourselves up over things like that. Because there's really not much discontinuity between those two belief systems. To use the term right? I mean, there's a lot of similarity there so I Want people to recognize that what most people when they're addressing the church.

From the theological positions. They usually Are not addressing the actual position people have. Now, but you know that I would hold to a dispensational theology. It's it's the way I approach the interpretation of Scripture.

However, I have countless times gotten and and I would say made the mistake of trying to correct people. When they try to define dispensationalism because a lot of times what they do is they define it wrong and It bothers me when people do that, but you know what I Also correct dispensationalist when they define covenant theology wrong.

Yeah, and The thing is not enough people understand these terms well enough to question their what they think the other side is. You know, I I had a thing bud where I had an atheist this is years ago before the Internet and I Had an atheist.

Well, I guess the Internet was around. It just wasn't as big as it is today but There was an atheist I worked with back when I used to work at Lucent Technologies and he had a TV program. And he wanted to debate me on His program now.

He had a pretty big program. And there were a lot of Christians that thought I should have done it because it would have helped I could have gotten a big platform from it. They didn't agree with what I what I did.

What I told him was I would be happy to come on your program if you would do me one thing I want you to debate the position of Christianity and I will debate the position of atheism. And he was like why in the world would I do that I can't argue for Christianity.

He's like what would be the purpose of that? I said, oh very simple I would like your audience to see that you challenge Christianity all the time and yet. You don't understand it. Yeah, I am willing to guess that if we do this debate your audience who are atheists will not say that I misrepresent their position and Yet any of the Christians watching will probably tell you you're misrepresenting ours.

But in a case like that who has more credibility? Yeah, exactly.

Local Church, Universal Church, and the Nature of the New Testament Church

The the the point that you're making it is. There is a lot of common ground on the topic on the on the doctrine of church Regardless of which side you're coming from. But you don't want to you don't want to misrepresent what a covenant Theology Adherent would understand and and you don't want to represent misrepresent our own side.

And I can tell you this is the this is. The singular question that I've had more often than not about dispensational theology. And it oftentimes and I know we'll get into this later. But it oftentimes Means that the person has misunderstood the discontinuity that dispensationalists see between Israel and the church.

In such a way that it leaves apparently two modes of salvation. And and that's incorrect too, but a lot of dispensationalists can't really explain that either. So your point about Taking the other side knowing what they believe Being capable of understanding it arguing it.

From a theological standpoint, that's invaluable. That's what we're to do that promotes unity. We're not trying to make division.

Yeah, because I remember I've shared this story a number of times but it is so fitting to what you're saying. I was taking a class on dispensationalism and I read both sides of an argument. It's one of the things that I do.

I try to do original source reading. I don't read someone that is criticizing someone else's view without reading their view. When I was reading a dispensational book and I'm paraphrasing I really wish that I marked the book and and put some You know a bookmark in it permanently so I'd always be able to pull these these quotes out so I can only paraphrase them.

But basically a dispensationalist book and this is what it said. And I and I understand that the covenant theologians who are listening are gonna get upset with this quote. Just hold your horses this happens all the time.

I give this first part of the quote and the covenant theologians get so upset. They don't listen to the second half, but it becomes important, but I first was reading from the dispensational position.

So that's the one I'll quote first and basically this dispensationalist said this where covenant theology and dispensational learn different is that Dispense a covenant theology believes that there's two ways of salvation.

Works in the old the covenant of works grace in the new the covenant of grace, but we dispensationalist believe that ever since the fall. There's been one means of salvation grace alone, and I'm going well.

Okay. I agree with that therefore. I must be dispensational. Except for one thing when I got done reading all the assigned reading in dispensational books I started reading some covenant theologians and Basically, this is what I found in one covenant theologians book.

He said basically the difference between covenant theology and dispensationalism is that Dispensationalism believes in two ways of salvation works in the Old Testament quoted from Schofield reference notes the first edition and Grace in the new but we covenant theologians believe that ever since the fall of Adam it has been by grace alone, and I went what?

Yeah, exactly. So you need to know both sides, right? We're arguing for the same point and we believe the same point we profess the same point.

And the thing that really bothered me about that was when I got that quote is it was from the same publisher and. Now that was when the light bulb went off on me. And I realized that this is the only person the group that benefits the most from these arguments are the publishers.

That's why you end up having like, you know Charles Ryrie's book in Zane Hodge's book on salvation right next to John MacArthur's book on the Lordship salvation on Lordship. Right and they put them all on the same page so you can get both or in that case all three, which I did.

But this is why we want to take the time with this is to break this down so we can slowly go through this. Understand the specific meanings of what the terms of the book are. What the term meant in the time is it was used so that as we carry forward to today we can understand what it means today.

But we also have to understand this whole issue between these theological systems and the differences in the way they view it because I think what people are doing a lot of times is reading into things that aren't there.

So they read into someone else's theological system. They read into the the term and read that term into a time before it had that meaning. So if you're going to read the term Ecclesia Church into the Old Testament.

Well at that time. The the term church just meant people getting together for voting. It had nothing to do with a worship service. It had nothing to do with a regenerate people. You see so this is why I wouldn't call What was going on in in Old Testament times with the Nation of Israel, I wouldn't call that church because at that time.

That didn't that wasn't the term to use. That wouldn't be the way to use that Congregation. Well, we can maybe use that that's a more fitting term at that time Synagogue. I mean, you know, well not even then because during the Old Testament times Synagogue wasn't really used that's that's something that started to form you know after Israel kind of fell and you know was was taken captive and.

So you you don't really see much in the Old Testament time of a synagogue rising up until the really the silent period where rabbinical.

Rabbinic law. Started to really start it up. Yeah, and and and just to clarify that's kind of what I was thinking. Really that first century particularly, you know when when the disciples after Peter's confession and Jesus says You know on this rock.

I will build my church. What was their idea? Was it a synagogue. Was it an assembly that they would have been familiar with at that time?

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what they would at the time of Christ a synagogue would be the. The way they'd refer to what we would refer to the church. And so yeah, they're in the time of Christ I agree with you then that the synagogue and church have that have a similar meaning or idea and.

So the other in the old in the in the new in the time that we have the writing of the New Testament. They would have thought of what we think of church today. They would have thought of synagogue. Yeah.

An assembly. Yeah, well an assembly with a purpose, right? And and that's what we'll get into probably next episode is that what is the purpose they got together was was for the worship of God and so and that's where the synagogue had that mindset and we'll touch on that next next episode.

But they had that mindset that the church Ended up changing the terminology or the the term the way they started using the term Ended up giving it a meaning that was very similar to the synagogue which could make sense if you think about it because where.