Ecclesial Organisation

The Ecclesia of God hen men and women are baptized into Christ they belong to God as part of His family. God has commanded that His children should be organised into a community of believers and He tells us clearly how this should happen – there should be one body or world wide community of disciples. “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 body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free…” 1Corinthians 12:12-13

In our English Bible, this organisation is called the church or assembly or congregation. However, in the Greek language, which was used to write the New Testament, a special word was used, the word ‘ecclesia’. An ecclesia is a group of people who are brought together for a special purpose and there is a use of the word in the New Testament which illustrates this. Acts 19 tells us of the time Paul spent in Ephesus and of the problems he had with some of the people of the city. “For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, "Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth… Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.” Acts 19:24-25&32

It is a great honour to belong to the ecclesia of God and when baptized members meet to worship they should always remember this fact. God has called them to these things and they should not neglect them.