A very brief history on the origin of the substitution of the term "church" for "ekklesia" in scripture.
It is still shocking to me that the word "church" is not used anywhere in scripture! The Greek word in every instance is "ekklesia." The literal meaning of the word is "called out ones." Its common usage was as "assembly," "congregation" or "gathering."
The root word for our word "church" is Germanic. It is "Kirche." Some have traced that to the Greek word "Kuriakos", meaning "belonging to the Lord." That word is only used twice in the New Testament, once for the Lord's Supper and the other for the Lord's Day. Never once does it refer to the Lord's people.
It seems to have originally come into use at the same time that buildings came into use as places of worship, rather than small home gatherings, primarily in the time of Constantine. The term referred specifically to the building as belonging to the Lord.
The term "church" in biblical translations as a replacement for the word "ekklesia" did not occur until much later. In the 1300's Wycliffe's translation from the Latin version used "church." However, Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, did not.
William Tyndale specifically refused to translate the word "ekklesia" as "church" in his English translation from the Hebrew and Greek.
The institutional "church" of his time actually forbade the translation of the Bible into English, for fear that it would undermine the authority the "church" wielded over the people. Part of the issue centered on the use of the word "church." As a result of Tyndale's "treachery" he was hunted down and strangled with a noose and then his body was burned!
When King James authorized an English translation of the Bible it was governed by 15 rules of translation. One of those rules stated specifically that, "the Word Church [was] not to be translated Congregation." The only reason for this was, again, to ensure that the authority of the institutional "church" was not undermined in any way.
The history of the substitution of the word "church" for "ekklesia" is purely political in origin. The word matters because the concept of "church" is utterly foreign to, and in many ways the complete opposite of, the descriptions of how Christians were intended to be, as originally presented in Scripture both by Jesus and subsequent New Testament writers.
This substitution of ideals has been so complete that it is now almost impossible to think in terms of separating institutional "church" from Christianity. The idea and ideals of "church" have effectively coopted every biblical term and infected them, after the fact, with an institutional meaning (e.g. pastor, elders, even the bride of Christ...more on that later).
I feel the need here to reiterate that this hijacking, as I have termed it, was not unforeseen by God! It was not his ideal, as nothing in this world has ever been, aside from Christ, but it is what was always going to happen. As such, "church", as political as it is and as despicable as its use of power has been throughout its existence, has still been used by God to minister truth, forgiveness, grace, mercy and peace to his people within it. This is no different than how God can take any circumstance and use it for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. There absolutely are still "churches" today that are oases of grace, although they seem to be more and more rare. I have friends who are faithfully pastoring some of those "churches."
The only point of even talking about this, then, is for permission to DeChurch, as needed. So many of us have remained in "church" or felt guilty for not being in one simply for lack of that permission.
The word "ekklesia" means "called out." I propose the possibility that, with God's recognition that "church" was always what would happen, the word "ekklesia" may have foreshadowed the eventual "calling out" of some, and perhaps one day all, believers from that institution.
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