Crowd To Church - Part 2

Introduction

In part 1 of this study we considered the characteristics of the crowd in the Gospels. In this study we will look at the Church, and then draw some conclusions.

If we do a quick word survey we see that οχλος (crowd) occurs 175 times across 170 verses, with 149 instances in the Gospels. On the other hand εκκλησια (church) occurs 114 times in 111 verses with only 3 occurrences in the Gospels, all in Matthew. I encourage you to read and reflect on these verses as part of your own study.

Church - εκκλησια (ekklesia)

The first question I think we need to address is why the Church is important, and to do this we should turn to Matthew, the only Gospel writer to use the word εκκλησια (ekklesia, church or congregation) and the first of only 3 uses in this Gospel.

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Matthew 16: 18

What is Jesus referring to here when He uses the word εκκλεσια (ekklesia)? It is unlikely to be a church as we may know it today, but He is talking about a community of believers. More than that, the reference to the “gates of hell” is indicating that this community shall not die. What we are reading here is Peter, on the confession of his faith (verse 17), is to be the foundation of Jesus’s new community. A community of people restored to God, a community that will never die (ref: France, R. T. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Matthew, IVP Academic, 2008 p258-259). There is some split in opinion as to what the Church is being built upon; is it on Peter, the one called rock by Jesus, or is it the confession of faith that Peter makes? France makes the suggestion that it is in fact Peter, but not in a way that leads to a Papal structure. He goes on to suggest that perhaps understanding this to mean that the church is built on this confession of faith is a Protestant reaction to the Catholic belief that Peter is the foundation of the Church, and we must be able to trace our leadership back to him.

What I think is most important for us is that the Church belongs to Jesus, and it shall not die. I may have a local church I call home. You may lead a church, but it is not my church or your church, it is part of Jesus’ Church.

As we look at some of the occurrences of this word across the New Testament we should also observe that there is not much instruction in how to run a church, and even less on how to hold a church meeting. There are more important things that the New Testament writers wanted to communicate.

The first occurrence of this word, after the resurrection and ascension, is in Acts 5.

“And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.”

Acts 5: 11

This is after the story of Annanias and Sapphira. But what can we learn from the story? If we read Acts 4: 32 - 5: 11 we can get a pretty clear picture of what is going on.

Acts 2 has already told us a lot about this new community. Verses 42 - 47 tell us they met together in large and small groups, the apostles taught them, they broke bread together, there were signs and wonders, there was unity, and sharing even selling possessions to meet the needs of others. The community was growing. Here in Acts 4: 32 - 5: 11 we get a closer look at this activity of selling possessions to help others.

In verses 4: 36 - 37 Joseph, called Barnabas by the apostles, sold a field and gave the money to the apostles to distribute, this seems to be his own idea, there is no hint of compulsion here. The text doesn’t indicate that he, or anyone else, was asked to do this. This action is repeated by Ananias and Sapphira, with one key difference; they lie about the money. I think that the lie is the big issue here, not holding back money.

“Then Peter said “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept some of the money you received for the land?”

Acts 5: 3

I think this shows us that the heart of the matter is the deception. As we know Ananias then dies, and Sapphira, his wife, repeats the lie and dies too. At this point we get the mention of church.

“And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.”

Acts 5: 11

This story shows something of the difference between the crowd and the Church. The crowd were not committed to one another, the Church must be. That commitment is built on honesty and integrity. We have also seen, in Acts 2, some of the activity of a church, those intentional practices contrast starkly with the behaviour of the crowds we read about in the Gospels. It also seems clear to me that the Church can expect to come under attack in a way we don’t see happen with the crowds. In Acts 5: 3 Peter’s question is “how has Satan so filled your heart…”. If this is left unchallenged the impact on that community would be devastating, lies and deception could become the norm and that inevitably leads to mistrust and community breakdown.

As the local church we should work towards being like the community, the church, we read about in these chapters in Acts, and we must be aware that as we do so we will come under attack. 

Community and attack are two key differences between the crowd and the church, between οχλος and εκκλεσια.

It is not just this one place where we see the Church come under attack, we read about this in Acts 8 where Saul is persecuting the Church, and going house to house to find and imprison those belonging to this community. What I want us to look at next is the response of the Church. 

“Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.”

Acts 8: 4

From verse 1 we know that this is not the apostles preaching, it was “all except the apostles” who were scattered. So, in this one verse we see the response of the people; they continue to declare Jesus. When a crowd is scattered they rarely continue what it is that caused their dispersion, yet this community, this church had to continue to declare Jesus. Their sense of purpose seems heightened, not diminished by this persecution.

The next occurrence I’d like to look at comes in Acts 12, James has been killed, and Peter has been imprisoned, guarded by 16 soldiers in total. What does the church do at this moment? They pray.

“So Peter was in prison but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”

Acts 12: 5

The word translated “earnestly” is “εκτενως” (ektenos) which could also be translated as intensely or fervently. It gives us a sense of the urgency that was felt by this community, and we can learn a lot from this response. The church, unlike the crowd, is a community that comes together to pray.

Moving on through Acts we see that there is structure and purpose in the Church. In Acts 13: 1-3 we read that there are different gifts, different nationalities with each playing their part. This is a point Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 12. We also see here in Acts 13, and throughout the book, that the Church responds to the Holy Spirit and sends people out. We have already seen that the crowds were also made up of people from different backgrounds, but the purpose of being in the crowd seems much more self centred. People were there to get healed, or just to see what amazing thing Jesus would do next. Sometimes this can be our motivation for going to church; to see if something will happen, or perhaps it is because we know our friends will be there and it is a chance to see them. But, with what we have read so far it seems clear that this is not what church is for. The Church is to be different from the crowd. I think we can see a unity within this young Church that is much more like the one people set apart for God that God has desired since the very beginning.

A large part of the New Testament is made up of letters, often addressed to the local church, with a focus of establishing healthy local churches. I think this tells us of the importance of the local church. I’d like to look at just a few examples of the use of the word εκκλεσια (ekklesia) in those letters, and I encourage you to use the list of references linked at the start to continue this reflection.

Let’s start by looking at some examples in Ephesians.

“And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church”

Ephesians 1: 22

What does this tell us about the Church? It tells that Christ is in charge, He is the one that leads this Church, and He is the one to whom the Church submits. A point Paul makes in Ephesians 5. It also shows us that Christ leads with the authority of God, it is God who has appointed Him.

For us this means a different relationship to that which the crowds had with Jesus. We, now part of His Church, acknowledge that He is in charge, and we submit to that authority. This is done out of love and reverence, in response to all that Jesus has done. Consider again the crowd. They, too, responded to all that Jesus was doing, they flocked to Him, sometimes hounded Him, but they pursued their own agenda. Motivated by what they could get from Jesus, or perhaps what they thought they could make Him do or be (remember John 6: 14-15).

The Church is different. We come to Jesus because of what He has done, not because of what He might do, or what we may be able to get Him to do for us. This is a key difference between the crowd and the Church, a comparison that hints at the underlying change that turns a crowd into the Church; the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

Continuing in Ephesians we see that the Church has a purpose, a role given by God. This is something that the crowd did not have.

“His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Ephesians 3: 10-11

The purpose of the Church is to reveal Christ to the world around us. It is easy to imagine those who crowded around Jesus telling their friends and neighbours what they had seen, the purpose of the Church surely includes that, but clearly it goes beyond that too. There is an extra dimension here, we are to make known the manifold wisdom of God in the heavenly realms. That is we, through our lives, and through our unity in Christ (see 3: 1-9) are to display to those around us, and to the heavenly realms, the wonderful, completed work of Jesus that is central to God’s eternal plan.

Once again this speaks plainly of the main difference between the crowd and the Church. As the Church we live in the good of Christ’s completed work. We are not chasing Jesus, wondering what amazing things we may see today. No, we are following Jesus knowing that the greatest miracle of all has already been completed. We are free to follow Him because He died and rose again, because His victory is complete we can know true freedom, and we live not with the wonder of what may happen, but with a certain and sure hope of what will happen; eternity with Him for those who believe.

I’d like to look at some of the practical things that make the Church different to the crowd. There is a lot that we could say here, and many verses we could draw upon. However, we will only look at a couple, but do use the complete reference list, linked at the start, to help you with your own study.

The Church is to be the truth. It is to be built on the truth, but it is to be the truth.

“Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”

1 Timothy 3: 14 - 15

It’s an interesting verse, and it conveys to us the importance of truth. Paul, I believe, is talking about the core truth of Christianity, he is saying that the Church needs to be that truth, needs to make that truth apparent. In the ancient world many large buildings and temples would have inscriptions on their pillars, these would recount stories, poems, and information that was important in that community. Speaking metaphorically Paul is saying that the Church is to be like that, making known the truth in a permanent and lasting way.

Later in this letter Paul gets even more practical as he gives instruction for the care of widows. This is not new advice, it is very much in line with what we read in Acts 2. The call is clear, the Church is to be a place where people find love and care in real, practical ways. In 1 Timothy 5: 16 Paul specifically mentions widows, but I think we can expand this to mean the vulnerable.

Just in these few short verses we see more differences between the crowd and the Church, between οχλος (ochlos) and εκκλεσια (ekklesia). The Church is a place of truth, making that truth known through generations, and it is a place where the vulnerable are cared for. This is not the behaviour of the crowd. 

Conclusion

There is much more that could be said, more verses we could look at, but as a short study I hope this has highlighted the key difference between the crowd and the Church. While both seem to be diverse in make up, united in their pursuit of Jesus that pursuit has different motivations. The relationships between the people, and between each person and Jesus are very different.

Those in the crowd seem to be more self seeking, there may be existing relationships, but there is no sense of new relationships being established. That creation of real connection must have been present in the Church as we read of people meeting in homes, and of the community growing. It is these relationships that lead to sacrificially supporting one another, to acts of service, and to a commitment to prayer. This should be the hallmark of our relationships with one another in our local churches.

Then we must consider the relationship to Jesus. Those in the Church are not seeking Him for what He might do, they are following because of what He has already done.

I think that challenge for us is are we, in our church attendance, part of the Church, or are we just part of a crowd?