Trent Horn - 20 Answers - The Church

Church is a translation of the Greek word ekklesia , which means assembly or the called out ones. In the ancient world, ekklesia referred to the practice of calling citizens out of their homes and into a public meeting place. For Christians, the word refers to Gods people, who have been called out of the world for the purpose of being his chosen ones. St. Paul put it this way: [God] chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will (Eph. 1:45). In fact, the English word church comes from the German kirche , which means what belongs to the Lord.

The gathering of Gods people into a single assembly began in the Old Testament through the covenants made with Abraham and Moses. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) puts it, this remote preparation acted as a sign for the future gathering of people from every nation into Christs kingdom (762). For example, just as the Israelites were a kingdom of priests (Exod. 19:6), all Christians share in Christs priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9). In addition, the ministerial priesthood of the Old Testament has continued through the successors of the apostles, or the bishops, and the priests they appoint. The Catechism puts it this way:

The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head. Representing the twelve tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem. The Twelve and the other disciples share in Christs mission and his power, but also in his lot. By all his actions, Christ prepares and builds his Church (765).

One metaphor for the Church that is found throughout Scripture and helps explain this structure is the body of Christ. Some people think the Church is just a loose collection of believers contained by a minimal set of beliefsin the same way a collection of gifts can be called one because all the gifts are in the same basket. But the Bible teaches that the Church is a single entity (Rom. 12:5) whose members are a part of Christ and one another (1 Cor. 12:27).

The most vivid metaphor that conveys this truth about the Church is that of the body. St. Paul taught the Christians in Ephesus that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its savior (Eph. 5:23). To the Christians in Corinth he likewise wrote,

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one bodyJews or Greeks, slaves or freeand all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many (1 Cor. 12:1214).

In the time of the apostles, believers were called Christians, but the Church itself was not called the Christian Church. It was referred to simply as the Church, as is evident in Lukes description of what Paul and Barnabas did in the city of Antioch, located in modern Turkey. He says, For a whole year they met with the Church, and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians (Acts 11:26).

Several decades later, St. Ignatius of Antioch penned a letter to Christians who lived six hundred miles away in the coastal city of Smyrna. He said, Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. The word Catholic comes from the Greek word kataholos , which means according to ( kata ) the whole ( holos ). Christs Church is called the Catholic Church because it is the same Church regardless of the area or time in which it is found, because it contains the fullness of Gods eternal plan of salvation for the human race.