THE NEW EKKLESIA

THE NEW TESTAMENT EKKLESIA IS THE ORIGINAL MODEL

In NT times, no one “went to church” because they were the Ekklesia. They met almost daily in the simplicity, flexibility, and intimacy of homes. A close network of Ekklesias in the region provided food, fellowship and apostolic teaching. The temple, the priests, the Sabbath, and the religious rituals of Jewish and Gentile faiths were gone. Even in the face of persecution, the Ekklesia grew and multiplied exponentially. Today, there is an urgent need for shackled Christians to break out of the confines of the traditional church boundaries to fulfill her apostolic agenda.

VISITOR FROM THE JERUSALEM EKKLESIA

Over the centuries, temples, the priests, and Sabbaths have crept back in. A first century Christian would have difficulty in recognizing the ornate buildings, the weekly church service, the sermon, the loud music, institutionalization and tithing to sustain the abovementioned unbiblical structures, as a church. Unfortunately, these are now the pillars and established tenets of the modern church. In the NT, the Ekklesia was not a place to sit back comfortably and listen to someone’s monologue but a place for everyone to be intensely engaged in dialogue. To have this, visitors will have to find a 1 Corinthian 14:23-32 and Acts 2:42-47 version of a house Ekklesia.

LOVE FOR ‘EACH OTHER’ IS THE BENCHMARK

All converts whether Jews or pagans were temple people but to their credit they did not build any religious building because they knew that Yeshua was building his Ekklesia with living stones (1Pet. 2:5). Many believe that they did not have buildings because they were poor, but Cornelius the centurion, Lydia the seller of purple, Phoebe the multinational businesswoman and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and the treasurer of Ethiopia, were well off and could have easily erected buildings. Even persecution would not have stopped them, because it was only periodic. The real reason was that The Lord No other religion in the world puts loving God, loving your awful neighbor, and loving even your enemy on the same footing. In fact, the word ‘love’ does not exist in anyone of them. They may have Erotic love in plenty, Storge or parental may be there but no Philia or love for each other and certainly no Agape or the divine love. Whereas in Christianity love is foundational “Love one another as I have loved you. By this shall all people know that you are My disciples because you love one another” (John 13:34-35). The glue of love bonded them, gave them a new identity and set them apart with a whole new way of life.

EXAMPLES OF IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE

1. Yeshua attended a wedding in Cana in a house. (John 2:1-12)
2. Yeshua was anointed for his death with perfume by Mary in the house of Lazarus. (John 12: 1-8)
3. Peter planted the first Gentile Ekklesia in the house of Cornelius. (Acts 10:24)
4. Saul created havoc in the Ekklesia, entering houses and dragging believers into prison. (Acts 8:3)
5. Paul shared the gospel from house to house. (Acts 20:20, 27)
6. Paul greeted the Ekklesias in the houses of women like Priscilla, Apphia, and Nympha. (1 Cor. 16:19, Philemon :2; Col 4:15)
7. Paul preached for two years in a rented house in Rome before he was executed. (Acts 28:30-31)
8. The first European Ekklesia was planted in Lydia’s house at Philippi. (Acts 16:15).
9. Paul was baptized by Ananias in the house of Judas of Damascus. (Acts 9:9-18)
10. Yeshua served the Lord’s Supper in a house. (Luke 22:11)
11. The Holy Spirit descended like tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost, in a house. (Acts 2:1-4)
12. Yeshua commanded his disciples to find a ‘house of peace’, to eat with them and heal the sick. New believers including Gentiles, were no longer to be strangers and foreigners but members of the ‘Household of God’. (Luke 10:1-9; Eph. 2:19,20)

THE NT EKKLESIA Vs. THE MODERN CHURCH

1. In the Household of God, both the first Great Command to love God and the second Great Command to love your needy neighbor are practiced by sharing the gospel and eating a meal thus making it a holistic, while the modern church, is a religious holy huddle. (Luke 10:27; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 11:20-26).
2. The NT Ekklesia is community-based Household of God, where everyone shares everything with everybody, whereas the modern church is strongly individualistic (Acts 4:32-35).
3. In the NT times, priesthood of all believers is practiced, while in the modern church only one priest dominates (Acts 15:22).
4. The NT Ekklesia is interactive and participative Body life. In the modern church, mute acceptance and unquestioning loyalty are encouraged (Matt. 21:23-24; Acts 17:11-12).
5. The NT Ekklesia is goal oriented with a mandate to disciple all nations, tongues and tribes while the modern church is program and tradition oriented. (Matt. 28:18-20; 1 Cor. 9:26,27).
6. In the NT, proceeds are brought to the feet of the apostles and distributed to the poor and the needy, but the modern church hogs it all (Acts 4: 34,35; Gal. 2:10; 1 Cor. 16:1-3).
7. The NT Ekklesia is led by local practitioners; while the modern church ordains imported theologians (Matt. 28:19; Acts 1:1, 8; Jam. 1:22-27).
8. The NT Ekklesia is open, informal, flexible, structureless, lively and a little chaotic, while the modern-day church is highly structured, programmed, sanitized and organized to boredom.
9. The NT Ekklesia has apostolic teaching, koinonia, healing, going out to save souls etc. hence very fruitful while the modern church has singing and sermons and therefore barren. (Acts 2:42-47; 16:5)
10. Being a ‘Household of God’, women and children actively participate in the Body life of the NT Ekklesia, in the modern church, they have a subservient role (1 Cor. 14:26-32)

GEMS:

• The “attractional church” requires buildings, reverends, pulpits, pews, tithes, traditions, rituals, programs, professional music, and sermons to attract people, that have no biblical warrant.
• Take away all that excess baggage and the Ekklesia will still be there because you, the temple of the living God, are still there to connect the disconnected to Yeshua.
• But for pervasive blindness, there is a super-abundance of gifted people stagnating on the pews, like uncut diamonds, waiting to be polished.
• The pulpit is divisive as it stands between the shepherd and the flock and robs their right to participate. The pulpit-pew dichotomy has done more damage to the lost world than any other heresy. Removing it will release millions for the apostolic agenda of the Ekklesia. 
• Yeshua tore the veil of separation by dying on a cross, thereby disenfranchising the Levitical priesthood. There can be no greater heresy than recreating that defunct clergy-laity divide.
• The business of the Ekklesia is to find the gaps where the lost people are and plug them with disciple making hubs.
• Going to a church makes you no more a Christian than going to a repair shop makes you a mechanic or going to a clinic makes you a physician.
• Stories recount interesting events that are easy to remember, whereas sermons are multipoint discourses, with nothing to remember and nothing to implement.
• Christianity is not going to church once a week, but going fishing and catching two-legged fish, as often as you can, at least every weekend.
• Good news is not systematic theology or a set of doctrinal statements but telling the story of Yeshua to those who have not yet heard of Him.
• Salvation is free but the rewards must be earned. (Rom. 6:33; Matt. 16:27)
• Christianity is loving God and loving each other as much as it is sharing a meal and the story of Yeshua with the lost.

 Copyright © 2023 Dr.Victor Choudhrie

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