Posts Tagged church
What Does an ‘Ecclesía’ of ‘The Way’ Look Like?
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Theology, Women in Early Christianity on April 8, 2026
Words
A Word of Wisdom from my brilliant college roommate, dear friend, and Christian brother (and lawyer), John Holt:
“Words Matter. The World We Make With Words is always before us in both law and theology because words create worlds. Words matter because they have also created the theological world of every faith.”
Examples:
“The Way”, ἡ Ὁδός , (hē Hodós), was an early term used to describe the Christian movement, emphasizing the teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the path to transformation and salvation, and experience of God. Members of The Way formed assemblies or congregations called “ecclesía”.
“Ecclesía”, Ἐκκλησία (Ekklēsía) used exclusively for Christian assemblies or congregations of believers. In the first century, the ecclesía was primarily a gathering of early Christians who met in private homes or public spaces, functioning as a community rather than a formal institution. These assemblies were characterized by their adaptability to local cultures and their focus on communal worship, fellowship and service, and the mission of spreading the teachings of Jesus. Ecclesía was never used to refer to a physical building, and certainly not to any temporal hierarchical institution (read: Church).[1]
“Words are thus the records of things, and a change of a single term is a kind of signal to sceneshifters that we have closed one act and entered another in the five-act drama of Church history. During the whole of Act I., as we may call it, the keynote is always διδαχή [teaching]; it is a doctrine, and those who preach or teach it are followers of the “way” [ἡ ὁδός], witnesses of the “word” [λόγοσ], or stewards of the “mystery” [μυστήριο]. Such is the apostolic keynote …
But a change came over the Church, which explains all her later “afterthoughts” in theology, as soon as the note διδαχή was dropped, and δόξα [private opinion] at first, and finally hardening into δόγμα [dogma], took the place of διδαχή. It is dogmatic theology, in all its forms, early and later, which we identify with that departure from the faith which the apostle (1 Tim. iv. 1) distinctly refers to as an apostacy.
Faith [πίστις] in the New Testament church [ecclesía] meant trust or affiance in the living God. It did not mean, “the faith” of the later dogmatic Church. If πίστις retains its primitive simplicity of meaning as trust or affiance in the living God, and the term διδαχή the equivalent phrase for those teachings which make up the body of revealed truth, then we have what we need: “faith” in a person, and “teaching” concerning his work.”
“This fusing of morality and religion into one, is indeed that return to primitive New Testament Christianity which the age asks for, but does not see its way to.”[2]
The goal of the discussion below is to help the reader see what the age asks for: the return to primitive New Testament Christianity.
In the light of these circumstances, the total absence of any temporal institutional dogma in the following discussion is wholly intentional.
Ecclesía Structure
The earliest Christian communities were charismatically structured, not institutionally structured.
- Charisma Was the Organizing Principle of the New Testament Ecclesía
- The earliest ecclesías were held together by charismatic authority, meaning:
- Leadership emerged from spiritual gifting, not appointment.
- Apostles, prophets, and teachers were recognized because the Spirit was believed to speak through them.
- Communities were small, fluid, and dependent on Spirit‑empowered individuals.
- The early church didn’t have offices — it had gifts.
- The earliest ecclesías were held together by charismatic authority, meaning:
- Apostles and Prophets Were Central — Not Peripheral
- Apostles as foundational witnesses
- Prophets as Spirit‑filled interpreters
- Evangelists as itinerant emissaries
- In the New Testament Ecclesía:
- Charismatic gifts were common and expected.
- Leadership was fluid and Spirit‑driven.
- Prophecy, tongues, healing, and visions were normal parts of worship.
- Authority was personal and experiential.
- Beginning in the 2nd century, Charisma began to decline as Institutional Authority rose
- As charismatic eyewitnesses died, ecclesías needed stability.
- Bishops and presbyters emerged to provide continuity.
- Written texts (eventually the NT canon) replaced charismatic speech as the norm of authority.
- Prophets and itinerant charismatics became viewed as destabilizing.
Apostles and Prophets built the Ecclesía; Bishops and Presbyters later managed it into the Church.
The Bible
We must understand that in the first century ecclesía, there was no Bible, as we know it. They had the Septuagint (Greek translation of Hebrew Scriptures), but there was then no settled canon of Scripture of the Hebrew Old Testament; and the New Testament would not be assembled and closed for another 250 years. Jesus himself quoted from some of the books which became part of the Hebrew canon, so we can assume that he considered them authoritative “Scripture”. Jesus’ followers considered his (Jesus’) own teachings to be authoritative. Near the end of the first century, Christians were citing Jesus’ words and calling them “Scripture” (e.g., 1 Tim 5:18). The book of 2 Peter includes Paul’s own contemporary letters among the “Scriptures” (2 Pet 3:16). Scripture was mainly oral (from Apostles. Prophets, and Teachers) in the “New Testament” ecclesía.
The Word of God was a Person, Jesus Christ, the Son, the Logos (λόγος). The Christ of history was the Eternal Logos, the light of all humanity. The later developed New Testament Bible canon contains the word of God and became the principal book of modern Christian devotion.
However, we should be reminded that in the ecclesía divine revelation was considered continuous and experiential. The idea that divine revelation would end at some point (e.g., with the closure of the Christian Canon in 367 AD, or at the end of the Apostolic era), would not have occurred to the ecclesía.
Creed
Examples from the New Testament Ecclesía:
From 1 Cor 15:
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.[3]
From Phil 2:
Though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied [ἐκένωσεν] himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.[4]
The current universal Nicene Creed would not be formulated until 325/381 AD.
Ministries within the New Testament Ecclesía
| Ephesians 4:11 |
| Apostle |
| Prophet |
| Evangelist |
| Pastor |
| Teacher |
Charismatic Gifts of the Holy Spirit within the New Testament Ecclesía
| Romans 12:6-8 | 1 Corinthians 12:1-14 |
| Prophecy | Word of Wisdom |
| Ministry | Word of Knowledge |
| Teaching | Discernment of Spirits |
| Exhortation | Speaking in Tongues |
| Giving | Interpretation of Tongues |
| Leadership | Prophecy |
| Mercy | Faith |
| Working of Miracles | |
| Gifts of Healing |
Women in the New Testament Ecclesía
In an interview, Christian theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart stressed that Paul’s letters—setting aside later pseudo‑Pauline additions—have a “remarkable egalitarianism” that is “almost historically inconceivable” for the time.
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Gal 3:28
Powerful Women in the New Testament Ecclesía
| Woman | Reference | Comment |
| Phoebe | Romans 16:1-2 | “a deacon [minister] of the ecclesía” |
| Priscilla (or Prisca) | Rom 16:3-5, 1 Cor 16:19 | Founded at least two house ecclesías with Aquila |
| Junia | Rom 16:7 | Named as “prominent among the apostles” |
| Nympha | Col 4:15 | Started ecclesía in her house |
| Lydia | Acts 16:14, 15, 40 | Started ecclesía in her house |
| Apphia | Philem 2 | Started ecclesía in her house |
| Mary, Mother of Jesus | Acts 1:14 | Present at first meetings of the ecclesía |
| Euodia, Syntyche | Phil 4:2-3 | Co-workers: “for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel” |
| Four daughters of Philip | Acts 21:8/9 | Prophetesses |
Worship Patterns of the New Testament Ecclesía
The Christian ecclesía usually met in private homes for worship and instruction (Acts 2:46; 16:40; 18:7; Philem. 1:2). It appears that, in commemoration of the resurrection, the congregation assembled on the “Lord’s Day,” Sunday, the first day of the week (Acts 20:7See Eucharist, below; 1 Cor. 16:2). Writing to the ecclesía in Corinth, Paul describes two types of Christian gathering. One is the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist)(1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:20-29) or ceremonial community meal. Paul goes on to describe a second type of charismatic gathering, the prophetic assembly, which includes both singing and thanksgiving in unknown languages, with interpretation, and prophecy (14:1-33). These were likely two aspects of the same gathering.
The order of worship in the Didache[5] [ca. 100 AD] allows Jewish forms for “grace” before and after meals. The leader’s prayer does not refer to the body and blood of Jesus; instead, the emphasis is on the gathering of the ecclesía body (see 1 Cor. 10:17). It is noteworthy that the prayer and thanksgiving are interlaced with doxologies; the event is a praise-celebration of the congregation of God’s people. The role of prophets is significant; the Didache calls them the ecclesía’s “high priests,” and gives instructions on how to welcome prophets and discern true from false teaching. The document does not specify what sort of ecclesía official is to preside over the Eucharist.
Worship patterns varied widely by location. Paul’s Gentile ecclesías were not as structured as those of the Jewish Christian ecclesías who came from a background of Synagogue/Temple worship (e.g., as described in the Didache). Diversity was the hallmark of New Testament Christianity.
Sacraments (Mysteries)
Jesus himself instituted the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist) as part of his last Passover celebration with his disciples (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-22.) His words on that occasion (“This is my body . . . ,” “this is my blood . . . ,” “do this in remembrance of me”) suggest a close identification between the elements of bread and wine and the continuing presence of Jesus with his Ecclesía.
Two other sacramental actions established by Jesus were Baptism and Foot Washing. The Gospel of John records that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples on the night of his arrest, as a symbol of the loving servanthood they were to show toward one another (John 13:1-15). However, the rite is not specifically mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament.
Regarding Baptism, Jesus himself had been baptized by John the Baptizer as a sign of his role as the Messiah or Son of God (Mark 1:9-11). The Didache tells us: “But with regard to baptism, baptize as follows. Having said all these things in advance, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in [cold] running water.”
Prayer
“pray without ceasing” 1 Thess 5:17 (this is the foundational direction of hesychasm)
“But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you [openly].” Matt 6:6
The Didache specifically quotes the text of the Lord’s Prayer (akin to Matt 6) and directs us to “Pray like this three times a day”.
Giving
Early Christian communities practiced notable acts of mutual aid and pooled collections, and giving was encouraged and commended by Paul. But Paul did not prescribe a universal rule that all goods and money be held in common. Early Christian fellowship and service was fundamental and sometimes expressed in radical generosity, but giving was practical, voluntary, and contextual rather than a uniform economic communalism.
Fasting
Again, from the Didache: “And do not keep your fasts with the hypocrites [i.e., Jews]. For they fast on Monday and Thursday; but you should fast on Wednesday and Friday”.
I quoted Rev. John B. Heard at the beginning of this post when he said, “This fusing of morality and religion into one, is indeed that return to primitive New Testament Christianity which the age asks for, but does not see its way to.” I hope we have clearly pointed out “The Way”.
[1] Theodore Beza, a Presbyterian follower of reformer John Calvin, was the first person to translate Greek “Ekklesía” with the modern English word “Church” in his 1556 translation of the New Testament canon. To equate the first century Ecclesía with the 16th century context of “Church” may be the worst Bible mistranslation ever made in English. Worse yet, the translators of the 1611 King James Bible copied Beza’s mistranslation; and so it goes with most subsequent English translations. With translation alternatives of “assembly” or “congregation” readily available and historically used, I hardly think the mistranslation was innocent. Words matter.
[2] Heard, John B. Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theology Contrasted. T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1893. (pp. 229-230)
[3] 1 Cor 15, Harper Bibles. NRSV–New Testament.
[4] Ibid., Phil: 2.
[5] The Apostolic Fathers. “Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” (Bilingual English-Greek Edition). Translated and edited by Bart D. Ehrman. Vol. 1 of two volumes. Harvard University Press. 2003. The Didache was likely written in the first century by Jewish Christians living in the Egyptian, Palestinian, or Syrian region.
Note: All comments in brackets [] mine.
Christos Yannaras: “Christian life”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets on February 8, 2018
“Increasingly, Christian life seems to be nothing more than a particular way of behaving, a code of good conduct. Christianity is increasingly alienated, becoming a social attribute adapted to meet the least worthy of human demands – conformity, sterile conservatism, pusillanimity and timidity; it is adapted to the trivial moralizing which seeks to adorn cowardice and individual security with the funerary decoration of social decorum.”
Christos Yannaras
The “Ekklesía” of Jesus and Paul is not the “Church” of men.
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, New Nuggets on October 19, 2017
Most English bible translators have interpreted the Greek word “ekklesía” as “church”, but “ekklesía” has nothing to do with the word “church”! Every word study and reference available agree that the word “church” does not come from the original Koine Greek word “ekklesía”, but comes from a different, late Greek word, which has a totally different meaning!
“Ekklesía” means an assembly of the “called out”, or “gathered apart”. In Scripture, it refers to a “convocation, assembly, or congregation”. “Ekklesía” clearly refers to people.
However, the word “church”, as you will learn, is defined as a place (physical building and its associated institutional infrastructure), and not as a people. That is the difference. Now, a group of believers, the Ekklesía, may go to a “church” building to worship God, but the “church” building and its supporting infrastructue is not the Ekklesía.
The English word “church” is derived from the Greek word kyrios, meaning ruler or lord. Specifically, it comes into English in the context of, “kyriake oikia”, “Lord’s house”, which by the 4th century was shortened to the adjective “kyriakon”, “of the Lord”, and was used to denote houses of Christian worship. Neither “kyriake oikia” nor “kyriakon” ever appear in the Greek New Testament referring to a congregation of worshippers or as a place of worship. This association did not occur until about AD 300, 270 years after Jesus’ Crucifixion. Regardless, this is the late Greek word that was first translated into Old English as “cirice”. It was then translated into Middle English as “chirche“, from which we get the modern English word “church”.
The Wycliffe Bible (1385), the first Bible printed in vernacular English, was a translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible (Jerome used “Ecclesiam”), and Wycliffe used the Middle English words “chirche”, “chirches”, and “chirchis” some 111 times in the New Testament.
On the other hand, if you look at William Tyndale’s Bible (1526), which was the first English Bible translated directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, he correctly translated “ekklesía” as “congregation”.
The first recorded use of the Modern English word “church” in a Bible was in 1556 by a Presbyterian follower of John Calvin, Theodore Beza. The following year the New Testament of the Geneva Bible (the Bible of the America’s Pilgrims) was published by Beza’s friend, William Wittingham, and he also used the word “church”. And of course, the later King James Bible of 1611 also uses the term “church”.
The word “ekklesía” is used 115 times in the Greek New Testament, and in most English bibles, it is always incorrectly translated as “church” with the exception of three instances (Acts 19:32,39,41) where it is properly translated as “assembly”.
By the Protestant Reformation, after some 1,200 years of institutional cathedrals, clergy, liturgy, ritual, doctrine and dogma, Jesus’s New Testament concept of “ekklesía” had become so obscured that Protestants, long preceded by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churchmen, considered the Greek word “ekklesía” virtually synonymous with “church”! We continue that convenient institutional rationalization and error today.
“Church” is not found in the original Greek New Testament in either word or concept. It is an afterthought and convenient rationalization of post-apostolic institutional men.
Rohr: “Wolf in the Henhouse”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on January 18, 2017
“Unfortunately, the bottom-up, inside-out, whole-making instinct [of early Christianity] did not last. Starting in AD 313, Christianity gradually became the imperial religion of the Roman Empire. It was mostly top-down and hierarchical for the next 1700 years. As the “imperial mind” took over, religion had less to do with Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence, inclusivity, forgiveness, and simplicity, and instead became fully complicit in the world of domination, power, war, and greed itself. The wolf started living right inside the hen house, and the common pattern of low-level religion was repeated.
…I am sorry to have to share this with you, but the impact of the Church’s collusion with empire must be confessed or we will never be free from it. It also helps us understand why so many have given up on Christianity and often, unfortunately, thrown out the baby with the bathwater.” ~Daily Meditation, 1/18/2017
D.B. Hart: “For my money, if Origen was not a saint and church father, then no one has any claim to those titles.”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on May 13, 2015
David Bentley Hart (born 1965) an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion, is a philosopher, writer, and cultural commentator. His books include The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss and That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, Universal Salvation, and The New Testament – A Translation. He lives in South Bend, IN.
“East or West, all Christians are burdened with the absurdities of Christian imperial history. But any conception of orthodoxy that obliges one to grant the title of “saint” to a murderous thug like Justinian while denying it to a man as holy as Origen is obviously—indeed ludicrously—self-refuting. And one does not defend tradition well by making it appear not only atrociously unjust, but utterly ridiculous.”
D.B. Hart, from Saint Origen, First Things, October 2015.
“For my money, if Origen was not a saint and church father, then no one has any claim to those titles. And the contrary claims made by a brutish imbecile Emperor are of no consequence.”
D.B. Hart, from Eclectic Orthodoxy blog post, 11 May 2015.
Anthony Bloom: “the Church must never speak from a position of strength”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on April 22, 2015
“It seems to me, and I am personally convinced, that the Church must never speak from a position of strength…It ought not to be one of the forces influencing this or that state. The Church ought to be, if you will, just as powerless as God himself, which does not coerce but which calls and unveils the beauty and the truth of things without imposing them. As soon as the Church begins to exercise power, it loses its most profound characteristic which is divine love [i.e.] the understanding of those it is called to save and not to smash…”
– Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
Yannaras: “Towards a New Ecumenism”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on January 9, 2015
Christos Yannaras (1935 – ) was Professor of Philosophy at Pantion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens. His books include Freedom of Morality and Person and Eros. His essay first appeared in French in Contacts, No. 179 (1997), pp. 202-206.
“I dream of an ecumenism which will begin with a confession of sins on the part of each Church. If we begin with this confession of our historic sins, perhaps we can manage to give ourselves to each other in the end. We are full of faults, full of weaknesses which distort our human nature. But Saint Paul says that from our weakness can be born a life which will triumph over death. I dream of an ecumenism that begins with the voluntary acceptance of that weakness.” ~ Christos Yannaras
Reclaiming our Prophetic Voice and Authority
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts on July 6, 2013
“In the Biblical tradition, the power on the Right and the power on the Left are symbolized by the kings and the prophets, respectively.” Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
Fr. Rohr brings up a thought-provoking truth. The Jewish prophets were mainly engaged in acting as agents of God to communicate with his people. This communication came in the forms of prediction of future events, criticism and indictment of native and foreign domination systems, and energizing and encouraging the people to faith and hope. The prophets didn’t just know about God, they knew God in a direct and experiential way. This gave them great authority, passion and confidence. They cared about what God cared about. In the words of theologian Marcus Borg, “the strongest passion of the God of the Bible is the transformation of the humanly-created world into a more just, compassionate, peaceful kind of world.” The prophetic voice echoed that passion.
Because Christianity has been in league with the secular “kings” of this world (discussed yesterday in the post “Christendom: 1,700 years of sleeping with the enemy”), the institutional Christian Church silenced its prophets and lost its prophetic voice and authority early in its history. In fact, so thorough was this purging, the ministries of Apostle and Prophet virtually disappeared from the institutional church (cf., Eph. 4:11). All this in the face of the advice and direction of St. Paul to the individual members of the body of Christ to “strive for the greater gifts”; specifically, “first apostles, second prophets, third teachers”, in that order (cf., 1 Cor 12:27-31). Oh well, “Christendom” did indeed require the institutional church to compromise some core values, didn’t it?
The point is, that when the institutional church suppressed and abandoned its prophetic tradition, the only prophetic voice left on the field was that of secular liberals. The obvious problem with that situation was that these secular prophetic voices often had little or no grounding or authority past the limitations of their own human intellect and passion. That can be a very dangerous thing indeed, as history has amply demonstrated.
The fall of Christendom, starting after WW I in Europe and a little later (post-WW II) in the U.S., marks the breakdown of the unholy alliance between institutional church and State. The universal Church (read: Ekklesia, Body of Christ) now has the opportunity, for the first time in 1,700 years, to reclaim its traditional Prophetic voice and authority. We have the clear advantage over secular prophets in that we know God experientially (some still do, praise God!) and thus can again speak with the authority, passion, and confidence of a loving God who calls us to restore ourselves and the world to union with him.
This is truly an exciting time for the Ekklesia, Body of Christ. Just think, we might even grow some Apostles…
Christendom: 1,700 years of “sleeping with the enemy”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts on July 5, 2013
I was recently reading a piece by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, on history’s habit of fluctuating between extremes of the “Left” and the “Right”, between Liberalism and Conservatism. Rohr made the interesting observation that, “It is interesting that these two different powers took the words “Right” and “Left” from the Estates-General in France”. What he said next really caught my attention, “On the right sat the nobility and the clergy (what were the clergy doing over there?) and on the left sat the peasants and 90 percent of the population”.
It struck me that the image of the clergy sitting with the nobility is a good working definition of “Christendom”. The term “Christendom” applies to Protestants as well as to Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox starting in AD 313, when Roman Emperor Constantine I ended the persecution of Christians and made Christianity the preferred religion of the Empire with the Edict of Milan.
The institutional “Church” does not acknowledge the fact that although the “Clergy” has been sleeping with enemy (i.e., the “Nobility”) for a solid 1,700 years, both Jesus and Paul have been sitting on the opposite side of the isle with “the peasants and 90 percent of the population” for that entire period.
I have often said that the demise of “Christendom” in the late 20th/early 21st century offered a great opportunity for the universal “Church” (the Ekklesia) to become more closely aligned with Jesus, Paul, and the peasants and away from Nobility and Empire. Although this would appear to be a short-term disaster for the contemporary institutional “Church” as it exists today, it would provide an opportunity for the institutional church to repent and “change its mind” (cf. Rom. 12:2). The alternative would be to continue to fade into irrelevance. I believe that the institutional “church” must do corporately what it continually calls its laity to do individually: confess and repent. Were this metanoia to happen, a whole lot of existing “tradition” would instantly disappear, “Poof!”, and the local church might start doing a better job of leading the saints to union with God (theosis) than it did under Christendom.
Unfortunately, I think that the contemporary institutional “Church” is far too proud and far too arrogant to admit that it has been this wrong for this long. I anticipate that it will continue to fume and bluster in denial of its own sin and carnality. At least for now.
Like any worldly institution, the “Church” will ultimately do whatever it has to do in order to survive, even if that means violating its own existing core values; like it did 1,700 years ago.
Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts on March 23, 2013
The beginning of the first century AD saw the rapid rise of the Roman Imperial Cult. This religious cult was based upon the proclaimed divinity of Augustus Caesar (c.62 BC – 14 AD / Reigned 31 BC – 14 AD) and subsequent Roman Emperors. This Imperial Cult was a unifying political and religious factor across the whole Roman Empire in the first century. The emergence of the Imperial Cult preceded, but also developed with, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The earliest written Christian records we have are the Letters of St. Paul from the mid-first century. A good summary of the theme of his gospel message is contained in the Letter to the Romans Chapter 1, Verses 3 &4: “…concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead…”.
In the opinion of British theologian N.T. Wright, “Despite the way Protestantism has used the phrase (making it denote, as it never does in Paul, the doctrine of justification by faith), for Paul “the gospel” is the announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s Messiah and the world’s Lord.”
Wright goes on to explain that Paul’s euangelion, his gospel (Good News) message, was every bit as much a confrontational and subversive political proclamation as it was a religious one: “Paul was announcing that Jesus was the true King of Israel and hence the true Lord of the world, at exactly the time in history, and over exactly the geographical spread, where the Roman emperor was being proclaimed, in what styled itself a “gospel”, in very similar terms.”
Later, Wright applies Paul’s gospel message to his [Paul’s] vision for the ekklesia, the church. His basis for this comes from Chapter 3 of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Wright tells us: “We may begin with 3.20. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah”. These are Caesar-titles. The whole verse says: Jesus is Lord, and Caesar isn’t. Caesar’s empire, of which Philippi is a colonial outpost, is the parody; Jesus’ empire, of which the Philippian church is a colonial outpost, is the reality.”
Wright goes on to discuss the implications of Paul’s vision of this empire of Jesus: “if Paul’s answer to Caesar’s empire is the empire of Jesus, what does that say about this new empire, living under the rule of its new lord? It implies a high and strong ecclesiology, in which the scattered and often muddled cells of women, men and children loyal to Jesus as Lord form colonial outposts of the empire that is to be: subversive little groups when seen from Caesar’s point of view, but when seen Jewishly an advance foretaste of the time when the earth shall be filled with the glory of the God of Abraham and the nations will join Israel in singing God’s praises.”
Paul’s vision for this ekklesia, as subversive colonial outposts of the coming empire of Jesus, could not be realized after a series of events in the fourth century. In AD 313 Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan, a proclamation of religious tolerance that officially ended the persecution of Christians. The Christian Church greatly increased in power and influence in the fourth century under Imperial patronage. The Church quickly became fully integrated into the political and cultural fabric of the Roman Empire, culminating with The Edict of Thessalonica, also known as Cunctos populos, issued on 27 Feb 380, by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. This edict ordered all subjects of the Roman Empire to profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria. The edict officially made Nicene Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.
And the Church has been “sleeping with the enemy”, the world’s domination systems and institutions, for the entire 1,700 years since. This is Christendom. This is not the vision of the ekklesia of the Apostle Paul.
First Thoughts 