Page 10 - Ecclesiology Textbook Masters

Study Section 2: The Promise Fulfilled – The Church is Born

2.1 Connect.

Put yourself in the place of the disciples. Jesus Christ, whom you have followed and for
whom you had abandoned everything to follow, had recently been crucified but appeared in
your midst and promised that a new day was coming soon. He promised to send the Holy
Spirit to live inside of you, but perhaps you really did not understand how that was possible.
After all, since the beginning of time, while the Holy Spirit came upon the prophets or other
men of God, it was only a temporary thing. Can you imagine what it was like to wait 50 days
until finally this amazing event occurred? Let’s look at this event more closely…..

2.2 Objectives:

1. The student should be able explain how the church was born at Pentecost. The student
should be able explain how this experience changed the lives of believers in the first century.

2. The student should be able describe difference between the church universal and the church
local.

3. The student should be able describe the responsibilities of the church as commanded by Jesus. The
student should be able site how the modern day church may have wandered from those responsibilities.

2.3 The Birth of the Church

It is from the New Testament primarily, if not really exclusively, that the
real meaning and idea of the Church is derived. This mystery of the Old
Testament was introduced at Pentecost and will end at a future rapture
and wedding feast. Two words are of special importance in understanding
what the church is:

1. Ecclesia – comes from two Greek Words meaning “to call out from.” This word is used
about 115 times in the New Testament. In Acts 7:38 Luke refers to Israel in the
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wilderness by the same word. Again, this is why Israel is a type of the church in the Old Testament. But
it is primarily referred to the assembly of believers in Christ (Matt 16:18, 18:17, I Cor. 1:2, Eph. 5:25-27).
The idea of being specially “called out” is understood in the book of Romans.

Romans 8:30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he
justified, he also glorified.

2. Kuriakon – Greek word which means “that which belongs to the Lord.” We have “supper with the
Lord” (I Cor 11:20) and worship him on the “day of the Lord” (Rev. 1:10. Luke 22:25 and Romans 14:8-9)
to illustrate that the Lord had dominion and authority over the church.

4 http://www.biblebonanza.com/ecclesia.html

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