This word for church, ekklesia, was used at the time of Jesus to refer to the “calling out” of citizens for a civic meeting or for battle, and is employed in one form or another in both the Old and New Testaments to refer to the people of God, assembled together. So church is, essentially, a gathering of kingdom citizens, called out—from their individuality, from their sins, from their old ways of doing things, from the world’s way of doing things—into participation in this new kingdom and community with one another. I’m not exactly sure how all this works, but I think, ultimately, it means I
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