Is faith supposed to judge politics?

[ken_sylvania]

You might have guessed by now that I kind of grit my teeth when a preacher or SS teacher starts to lecture about the Greek or Hebrew root of a certain word and all the hidden meaning that it brings to a particular text.

Me too. Because most preachers don't actually know these languages, and a lot of these "hidden meanings" are simply repeating what someone else said somewhere.

But I don't think speculating about what Jesus might have said in Aramaic is any better. We don't have an "original Aramaic" to work from. And speculating that this word is a generic word for any gathering is just as bad.

Let’s start with the lexicons. I think this is the root meaning we are talking about:

• Thayer: “properly, a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place; an assembly.”
• BDAG (3rd ed.): begins with “a regularly summoned legislative body, assembly” (with citations from Thucydides, etc.), then moves to the LXX for Israel’s *qāhāl*, then to broader NT use.
• LSJ (classical Greek lexicon): “an assembly of citizens summoned by the crier, the legislative assembly of the polis.”

The core meaning is consistent: ekklesia means a duly summoned gathering, especially of citizens in a polis. The LXX used it for Israel’s qāhāl. NT writers used it for the church, the “called-out” people of God.

Lexicons also note the sense of “any gathering.” But if you check the examples, they are never a random crowd. They are always either a lawful civic assembly or a chaotic version of the same. For example, in Acts 19:32 the ekklesia in Ephesus is in confusion, shouting different things — not just a mob, but the city’s assembly called together chaotically. In Acts 19:39, the town clerk distinguishes this from the “lawful ekklesia,” the official civic gathering. In Acts 19:41, he dismisses the ekklesia.

Josephus shows the same pattern: in Ant. 14.38, he uses ekklesia for a tumultuous gathering stirred up in anger; in War 2.229, Agrippa II summons a lawful ekklesia of the people; in Ant. 14.190, Josephus even speaks of the official ekklesia of the Jews alongside magistrates and the senate. In every case, whether orderly or chaotic, the word still means an assembly that has been called together — never just a casual crowd.

So when NT writers use ekklesia for the church, I really do think they are deliberately drawing on both traditions: the covenant assembly of Israel (qāhāl YHWH) and the civic assembly of the polis.

FWIW, I only started digging into this after reading P&T and Barnhart's posts, but it really resonates with what N. T. Wright argues in Paul and the Faithfulness of God — Paul is “retelling Israel’s story in a world where the word already had civic freight” (vol. 1, p. 387). Craig Keener makes the same point in his IVP Bible Background Commentary: ekklesia would have signaled both Israel’s sacred assembly and the civic assembly to its first hearers.

I could be wrong, and you certainly have the right to your own opinion. But could you show me an example where ekklesia means a random crowd, not a summoned assembly as in Acts 19?

Why would I try to find examples where ekklesia means a random crowd? I haven't been arguing that that's what it means. I said I think it might have been "a common word to use for assemblies" and an "assembly" is not just a "random crowd." An "assembly" is a group of people gathered together for a common purpose, which is pretty much what you seem to be saying an "ekklesia" is.

I'm saying two things - #1 that I don't think there's any reason to think that Jesus used the word "ekklesia" (I think he more likely used an Aramaic or Hebrew word instead), and #2 that if "ekklesia" very clearly does not always have the sense of a civil (as in political) assembly - it's used in the Septuagint to refer to the Israel assembled before God, in Acts 19 it is used to refer to a rioting mob, and of course it's used to describe certain Greek official public gatherings - then it's not necessarily a given that the early church had the political/civic gathering usage of it in mind when they began using the term.
For examples of "ekklesia" used to describe non-civic gatherings, one example would be Josephus' rendering in Ant. 6:222 of the account found in 1 Samuel 19, where Saul encounters a group of prophets and is overpowered by the Spirit of God. Another would be the mob that came together in Acts 19.

[Bootstrap]

Why would I try to find examples where ekklesia means a random crowd? I haven't been arguing that that's what it means. I said I think it might have been "a common word to use for assemblies" and an "assembly" is not just a "random crowd." An "assembly" is a group of people gathered together for a common purpose, which is pretty much what you seem to be saying an "ekklesia" is.

Thanks for the clarification - I had misunderstood you.

I'm saying two things - #1 that I don't think there's any reason to think that Jesus used the word "ekklesia" (I think he more likely used an Aramaic or Hebrew word instead), and #2 that if "ekklesia" very clearly does not always have the sense of a civil (as in political) assembly - it's used in the Septuagint to refer to the Israel assembled before God, in Acts 19 it is used to refer to a rioting mob, and of course it's used to describe certain Greek official public gatherings - then it's not necessarily a given that the early church had the political/civic gathering usage of it in mind when they began using the term.

In Hebrew, the usual word is qāhāl—typically a formal, gathered assembly (Israel convened before God). In Aramaic, the normal rendering is כְּנִישְׁתָא (kenishta), which stresses the act of assembling. In both cases, the idea is not just ‘a crowd,’ but a convened people with shared purpose.

So pick a language, they all have similar meaning. Israel assembled before God was very much a civil (as in political) assembly as well as a religious one. God gave them not only spiritual and ceremonial instructions for worship, but also a body of laws that covered civil and social life.

For examples of "ekklesia" used to describe non-civic gatherings, one example would be Josephus' rendering in Ant. 6:222 of the account found in 1 Samuel 19, where Saul encounters a group of prophets and is overpowered by the Spirit of God. Another would be the mob that came together in Acts 19.

I think you are saying we shouldn’t assume the early Christians always had the political/civic sense in mind when they called themselves an ekklesia. The word could carry shades of meaning from Greek civic life, Jewish covenant life, or simply “a gathered people. And we don't know which one is primarily in view.

That's not an unreasonable position.

But to me, even the two examples you mention also contain the notion of being called together, and also have civic overtones. Even in Acts 19, So even in Acts 19, the contrast is not between ‘mob vs. assembly,’ but between an unlawfully called assembly (v. 32) and a lawfully called assembly (v. 39).

In Israel’s world, prophetic gatherings weren’t legislative assemblies in the Greek sense, but they did carry civic weight. Samuel’s assemblies at Mizpah, for instance, were simultaneously spiritual and political. The prophets’ presence and pronouncements could affirm or challenge rulers, so their gatherings always had a public dimension.

So while it’s reasonable not to assume the civic sense in every case, I think it’s more likely that the civil dimension was usually in view as well. The ancient world didn’t operate with a neat church–state divide, so assemblies often carried both spiritual and civic weight together.

[barnhart]

After the third or fourth century and the influence of church fathers like Augustine, there was more effort to align doctrine with Greek philosophy and this included a gnostic tinged dualism between the upper world of spirit and perfection and the lower world of matter and sin.

Jesus could chosen to build a synagogue instead of a church, a place of inward focused worship gathering to deal with matters of the heart and save souls, not bodies but he didn't. He claimed to be a king building the universal kingdom and to be the fulfillment of the Hebrew prophecy of rebuilding David's throne. If Jesus wanted to build a following of philosophy and inner light instead, he would have done so.

The Dominionists are right to pick up on the universal and material nature of Jesus kingdom and the neo-gnostics are right to notice Jesus was concerned with the purity of the heart but they both miss something essential. The Dominionists overlook the mode of the kingdom is love and persuasion vs. power and coercion, and the gnostics miss the material world impact, that belief commands action that the good news is relief for the poor, blind, imprisoned and lame.

[Neto]

After the third or fourth century and the influence of church fathers like Augustine, there was more effort to align doctrine with Greek philosophy and this included a gnostic tinged dualism between the upper world of spirit and perfection and the lower world of matter and sin.

Jesus could chosen to build a synagogue instead of a church, a place of inward focused worship gathering to deal with matters of the heart and save souls, not bodies but he didn't. He claimed to be a king building the universal kingdom and to be the fulfillment of the Hebrew prophecy of rebuilding David's throne. If Jesus wanted to build a following of philosophy and inner light instead, he would have done so.

The Dominionists are right to pick up on the universal and material nature of Jesus kingdom and the neo-gnostics are right to notice Jesus was concerned with the purity of the heart but they both miss something essential. The Dominionists overlook the mode of the kingdom is love and persuasion vs. power and coercion, and the gnostics miss the material world impact, that belief commands action that the good news is relief for the poor, blind, imprisoned and lame.

I'm reminded of how, when Jesus was talking with the woman outside of a town in Samaria, he told her that a time would come when people must worship God in spirit and in truth, and that the place, the temple in Jerusalem or the mountain in Samaria would be unimportant. Our SS lesson last Sunday was from the Prophet Jeremiah, who told the people that their focus on the temple would not save them. He said "You all cry out 'The Temple, The Temple, The Temple!' and think that you can be safe because you still go there to worship YHWH, even while worshiping false gods. That won't cut it."