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The word "Church" is not in scripture.

Willtor

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Even if you're right and the word "church" came from pagan sources... so what? Lots of our language comes from pagan sources. It doesn't mean we mean pagan things when we use the words.

El was a Canaanite god. But the patriarchs and prophets weren't referring to the Canaanite religion when they said "El" (as in "El Shaddai" or "Elohim"). They were referring to God of Heaven. "El" was just a useful word they adopted.
 
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JudaicChristian

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I think your source is just fine. All a person has to do is search a few words.
 
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JudaicChristian

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Joining Paganism to Christianity gives people the wrong idea.
 
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Willtor

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Joining Paganism to Christianity gives people the wrong idea.

Borrowing words? Who actually knew the etymology of the word? And even then, your etymology may be wrong! If people get the wrong idea from this, they're trying to get the wrong idea.
 
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ebia

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You seem to be missing his point, such as it is and poorly phrased as it is, that "church" is not a strict translation of "ecclesia". Ecclesia means literally "assembly [of the people of God]". Church is derived from "[house] of the Lord". The connotations end up being much the same, mind.

That said, I do find it cute the way certain Vatican documents like to talk about the rest of us as Ecclesial Communities.
 
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wayseer

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Joining Paganism to Christianity gives people the wrong idea.

The OT is shot through with pagan influence. What Willtor says concerning El is perfectly correct.

The important thing to recognise is not how similar the OT stories are with the pagan cultures but how they have reworked by the OT authors to create a very different set of meanings.
 
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ebia

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Joining Paganism to Christianity gives people the wrong idea.
Paul (and any other N.T. author for that matter) co-opts all sorts of Pagan ideas to talk about the one true Lord and the one true Gospel. Including those two words (Kyrios and Evangelion) and their connotations. So does the Old Testament for that matter. As you said yourself in the OP, Ecclesia is greek word with connotations in the pagan world, that is then co-opted by the LXX translators and then the New Testament authors.

It cannot be otherwise - to communicate one has to take the language and thought patterns that exist and co-opt them for one's purposes.
 
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Eucharisted

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You seem to be missing the point, such as it is, that "ecclesia" is a strict translation of "church". Church means literally "assembly [of the people of God]". Church is derived from "[house] of the Lord". The translation ends up being much the same, mind.

That said, I do find it cute the way you try to show Greek-speaking Jews - Jesus, the Evangelicals, the Apostles, Stephan, the whole early community of Christians - are wrong and don't know what the word ἐκκλησίᾳ means.
 
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Eucharisted

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Why don't we take this issue of the word "church" not being in Scriptures to its logical conclusion and therefore show its fallacious nature? "Jesus" is not in Scripture, so we can't worship Jesus. "Gospel" is not in Scripture, so we can't use the Gospels. "Christian" is not in Scripture, so we can't be Christians. "God" is not in Scripture, so we can't believe in God. Ergo, we must become atheists: the Scripture says so! Such is the fallacy of the argument that the word "church" isn't in Scripture, when in fact it plainly is!
 
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ebia

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It would be more accurate to say church literally means "[house] of the Lord" and connotes "assembly [of the people of God]". His objection seems to rest on using a word that only connotes the same thing, rather than meaning the same thing at its root.

It's not me saying there is anything wrong with using the word church (though I think there is something to be said for being a bit clearer about the exact words when we are looking at scripture since 'church' carries a heap of other connotations in the 21st century that would not have been in the mind of Jesus, Paul or Luke.

Of course no-one is saying Jesus, the Evangelists, Apostles, Stephen or anyone else is wrong about what Ecclessia means - the question, if there is one, is whether we are using the best possible word to translate that. Jesus and Paul didn't think in English and then translate that into Greek. The question isn't "is ecclesia the right word" but "is church an adequate translation of that word". To some extent the answer to that is "it depends".
 
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Eucharisted

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Church and ecclesia and ἐκκλησίᾳ mean the same thing.
 
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CreedIsChrist

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It doesn't "simply" mean one thing, as ecclesia has many different meanings related to a group of believers. For instance, there may be an ecclesia of 'believers' who could be manifest heretics. Hence there has to be a distinction made between such.. That is why the 4 marks of the Church(or congregation) were promulgated. One, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic..

Secondly, the KJV, which many protestants consider to be THE bible renders the word as 'Church' also. Not assembly or congregation.
 
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ebia

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Church and ecclesia and ἐκκλησίᾳ mean the same thing.
There's a good deal of overlap in meaning, but also some differences in connotation. Presumably whoever was responsible for using the Vatican documents that distinguish between churches and ecclesial communities sees a distinction between the two and isn't just playing word games.
 
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