Ecclesia the early church

Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 10:16 AM

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Subject: Citizens Assemblies and early Church/Ecclesia

Hi all

I've often thought about the mindsets of the people in that early church/ecclesia - the called out ones. Working with the Holy Spirit, how did they ending up forming a formal church (ecclesia) of Rome, of Antioch, of Alexandria.

Following Julia's new "citizens assemblies" J , here's an account of early democracy in Athens - 500 years before Christ - called ecclesia - the formal citizens' assembly within the city.

Some background - to vote in the ecclesia, you needed to be an adult male 18 years of age, not a slave, and not the son of foreigners.

Meetings were initially monthly, but grew to three to four meetings a month.

Issues frequently revolved around judicial matters - internally, and wars - externally, with the agenda set by the local council (boule) of about 500 men chosen randomly (i.e. by lot). This is the same word we see in Luke 23:50. Many cities, such as Sparta, speak also of a council of elders (gerousia) - as seen in the Senate which met with this Sanhedrin council in Jerusalem in Acts 5:21. Voting in the formal ecclesia was done by a show of hands in a public arena. A quorum would be required, 20% of the electorate - e.g. 6000 in Athens. Women could be citizens, but no voting rights when it came to these political matters, yes, probably would have created too much contention, they would have had enough as it was J

"A gang of slaves carrying ropes dipped in red ochre would travel through the city on the days the Ecclesia was to meet, and use their ropes to lash those citizens not in attendance. With garments thus stained, shamed citizens could legally carry out no business until they visited the meeting grounds of the Ecclesia"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesia_(ancient_Athens)

Apparently, people who didn't want to get involved were then called "private people" or "idiotes" - yes, from which we get the word idiots.

Interestingly translated in 1 Corinthinians as unlearned .

Note too, that when it came to providing protection from (and for) war, the Romans employed Tax Farming i.e. having an auction where people would bid for the right to become a "tolls" collector. It raised considerable revenue upfront using these publicans, the "public contractors" in the provinces. Similar systems of tax collecting can be found historically worldwide frequently run by gangs and secret societies in the Turkish empire (prior to 1923) — in China (prior to 1912) — in Russia (prior to 1862) — in India (prior to 1857) — in the French monarchy (prior to 1789) — in fact going all the way back through the centuries to those Pharaohs in Egypt.

An associated word "Perfect" in Matthew 5:48, is the word for "Complete", a "Toll (paid in full)". It is thus contrasted here with the word for "Publicans", or "Toll Farmers" who invest in the right to collect tolls for their own profit on earth.

Yep, a very different world from today, but I think it helps to understand where Paul was coming from in, say, 1 Corinthians 14. And I think that was Christ's intention in using that specific word regarding what he was going to build.

Interesting J Steve

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