SEMESTER 1
302 – The Definition of the Word Church
BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CORRESPONDENCE
COURSE: ECCLESIOLOGY I LESSON # 2
THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD CHURCH
INTRODUCTION:
1. When you hear someone say church, it is almost like the word the, it means nothing until you hear the total statement of the speaker.
III: “Satan’s churches,” “Homosexual churches,” “L.D.S. churches,” etc.
2. We need to know what we mean when we say “church,” and we need to mean what the Scripture means.
3. Let us consider some contemporary meanings and their error.
4. Then, let us try to see what the Bible means by the use of the word.
I. ECCLESIASTICAL CATHOLICISM
1. “The church” Catholic, Roman, popery.
III: “The Church” in Poland today.
2. “The Holy Catholic Church” in apostolic creed Protestantism.
3. The Church “True” all born-again believers.
III: Statements like “Rapture of the church.”
4. The Baptist Church, etc. (in an ecclesiastical sense).
5. In reality all this is Catholicism.
6. Catholic means universal. It is Romish in concept, and the “One church” concept grew out of it.
7. Misuses of words like “body” and “bride” lend themselves easily to this.
8. I state emphatically, I do not believe in the “Holy Catholic Church.”
II. TWO OR THREE PROPER SENSES OF USE
1. Among “Local Church” men it is stated that the church is seen in three senses:
i. Local
ii. Institutional
iii. Prospective
2. The “Prospective” seems to be difficult to justify.
3. Some claim a universal sense, we will consider and expound those Scriptures.
III. THE BIBLICAL MEANING
1. The Greek word ekklesia means assembly.
2. It is translated church, where it obviously refers to an assembly, professedly called out by Christ.
3. We do not build the doctrine on word definition, but we must not disregard it.
III: A word means little out of context, but words make context.
4. Thus, whatever else a church is, it must be an assembly.
IV. OBVIOUS AND MORE DIFFICULT USAGES
1. 85 out of 112 New Testament usages are clearly and obviously local usages.
2. This leaves 27 usages that can be questioned, one is of an Old Testament occasion (Acts 7
), leaving 26.
3. Out of these, most could have as easily referred to a single local congregation.
4. Some of them could not have particularly referred to a single congregation. To what did they refer?
5. I suggest that the usage is an institutional usage.
6. Review the meaning of the terms: The home, the family, the marriage relationship, the husband and the wife (Eph. 5)
7. But this is not another “kind of church” such as “local-visible” vs. true-invisible.
8. It refers to the local church as an institution.
9. So it seems to me that the Bible usages are: (a) a particular assembly and (b) any local assembly and yet none in particular.