Temples and Churches
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Temples and Churches
Jesus gave us the keys to kingdom. What we bind on earth is bound in heaven and what we loose is also loosed. We must make our yes, yes. God had told us time and again not to make covenants i.e. contracts or agreements that diminish our God given rights and responsibilities. He warned that we should not strike hands282 or pray, meaning to apply, to men and their gods,283 becoming unequally yoked, and eat the deceitful meats at tables that snared the people. Christ confirmed this precept with his stand on prayer/application, Corban, making a man on earth our father and His bar against the taking of oaths of any kind, also repeated by James. Paul says if we can be free choose it rather and that he would not be bound under the authority of any, and that we should let every man remain subject to the higher liberty.
“Swear not at all; but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” (Justin Martyr, First apology, Chapter XVI: Concerning Swearing. A.D.165)
Jesus appointed284 His Apostles a kingdom to serve. In the King James Bible we see the word Church translated from the Greek word ekklesia defined ‘an assembly called out’. It is composed of two words that individually mean ‘called’ and ‘out’ but together they take on a new sense of oneness out of many.
There are more than a dozen Greek words for an assembly. Ekklesia was a political term, not a religious term. In classical Greek “ekklesia” meant “an assembly of citizens summoned by the crier, the legislative assembly.”285 An ekklesia is not just any assembly but it is, “the lawful assembly in a free Greek city of all those possessed of the rights of citizenship, for the transaction of public affairs.”286
In Acts 7:38 there is reference to “the church in the wilderness”.287 The people were called out of bondage of the Egyptian government and the Levites were called out of the walled camp of the golden calf to be ministers of Israel, which was to be God’s kingdom. The Apostles were also called out to be bond servants of Christ the king. Peter said they were to maintain an entrance288 to that Kingdom ministering to it under the perfect law of liberty.289 Abraham was called out of Ur and Haran, and Israel out of Egypt, and the citizens of Judea out of the apostasy of the Pharisees to become the early Church because God wants us to live as free souls under Him and not Cain, Nimrod, Pharaoh or Caesar or any other man acting as a god. God wants us to teach all nations the precepts of His kingdom at hand.
“Are men the property of the state? Or are they free souls under God?
This same battle continues throughout the world today?”290
Jesus called out and appointed men to follow Him in service to His people, His kingdom. These were the men he prayed could live in the “world” but not be a part of it as they ministered and taught His ways of hope, freedom and love.291 These servants of God belonged to Him. Jesus saw them more as his brothers than His servants.
The Levites before them also had belonged to God and were brothers in service to the congregations of the people.292 They were never to stand between the people and God. They were to serve the tents of the congregations so that the people would never need to pray to the gods of the gentiles in times of need and desperation. That system continued to bind the people together by faith, hope, and charity.
When Jesus called out His disciples to teach them to serve the kingdom,293 He also applied restrictions upon them, limiting the scope and power of their appointed office. This was done under remarkably similar conditions as Moses had done centuries before because God is the same, precept upon precept.
The word ekklesia is not always translated into Church. One source of confusion is because ekklesia is not a proper name but a descriptive noun. Wycliffe calls all ekklesias ‘churche’. While, Tyndale always calls them congregation. With out more knowledge and understanding both uses may lead to confusion.
Investing in Diana
Wycliffe took “churche” from the old English “kirke” which is often attributed to a pagan temple in earlier times. He always translated ekklesia “churche” even when it was used to describe a governmental assembly in Ephesus. In 1526 William Tyndale, and in 1535 Myles Coverdale translated ekklesia as “congregation”. Tyndale only used the word church in Acts 19:37 in reference to that pagan temple of Diana when he was translating the word hierosulos, robbers of churches.294
In Acts we see ministers of Christ being accused in Ephesus of being church robbers, guilty of sacrilege. Sacrilege is from the Latin sacrilegus meaning one who steals sacred things. The word includes legus295 which is the Latin word that has to do with “binding together” from which we get words like legal and legislate. Sacred is defined, “Dedicated to or set apart for the worship…” The word worship has to do with allegiance and homage. What men today tell us these words mean is not as important as the meaning of the authors. We must desire to know what the author was trying to communicate, praying for true understanding.
What was this “church” that claimed to have been robbed by these ‘Christians’? What made their temples, or churche, pagan? Was their purpose different or was it the way they fulfilled that purpose? Was it the precepts contrary to those precepts of the Father in Heaven that damned the pagans?
The assembly at Ephesus was fashioned according to the doctrines of Diana, e.g. Artemus in the Asiatic traditions. It’s center was a massive temple similar in design of the front of the US treasury. It could seat over 24,000 people. Each of its 127 columns had been contributed by a different government and it was strategically located on major trade routes.
The most interesting thing was its purpose. It contained a great vault which was considered one of the safest depositories in Asia Minor. This temple actually functioned as a world bank, a religious institution like the Corban of the Pharisees. The “high priest” was also a credit officer making loans and collecting interest, managing valuable property, and in charge of security for those who deposited valuables in the temple in the course of commerce and trade. But, more important, it provided social insurance through a system of Roman Qurban as an underwriter for commercial interests and even national governments. There were regular and sizable contributions by members in the hopes of a secure return, profit or gain. There was coinage of money and the issuing of script. It was not only a bank but a treasury on a national and international basis.
Even as late as 250 AD Roman emperor Decian arrested seven Christian men and ordered them put to death at Ephesus. These seven men were of wealthy families but had given up their wealth to provide service for the Christian community, a service which again brought them into conflict with the Temple at Ephesus, accused of “robbery”.
There were accusations that they were causing fewer people to sacrifice at the temple. Some believe this meant fewer animals were being sacrificed because bones were found in the temple and there is a common belief that animal sacrifice was an essential part of these temples. The sacrifices were consumed by the people at feasts or given to the needy as a part of their social welfare system. Animal bones were found at Ephesus but why were they there?
Footnotes
282Proverbs 17:18 “A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.” Proverbs 22:26 “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debt.”
283Exodus 23:32 “Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. Exodus 34:15, Deuteronomy 31:16, 31:20, Joshua 23:16, 2 Kings 17:35, 38, Jeremiah 11:10, 22:9
284Luke 12:32 “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Lu 22:29 And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;”
285A Greek-English Lexicon, , p.206, by R. Scott, and H. G. Liddell (1996). Baker Book House, Grand Rapids
286Synonyms of the New Testament, 7th ed., pp. 1-2, R.C. Trench,
287Acts 7:38 “This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and [with] our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:”
2882Pe 1:11 “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
289Jas 1:25 “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
290Cecil B. DeMille in “The Ten Commandments.”
291Joh 17:11 “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we [are]”.
292Nu 3:12 “And I, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all the firstborn that openeth the matrix among the children of Israel: therefore the Levites shall be mine;”
293Lu 12:32 “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
294For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, ...Acts 19:37
295lex, legis, See “Law vs Legal” or “The Covenants of the gods”
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