It is most likely Paul himself who privileges this name [ekklesia] for those Christian communities, which otherwise might have been much like other Hellenistic supper clubs and like-minded associations. And his privileging of this name had a reforming, pastoral intent. Paul’s extensive use of the word — sometimes in the plural for the various assemblies; sometimes in the […]
Nicholas Lash on Christ’s priority to the Church Is it the case that the church is a community of people who, at any given moment, pre-exist the presence of Christ in their midst, or is it rather the case that the presence of Christ pre-exists, and is the essential precondition for, the existence and activity […]
On the peccability of the Church A. Lesslie Newbigin The Catholic is right in insisting that the continuity of the Church is God’s will. He is wrong when he suggests that the doing of that will is the condition of our standing in His grace. As for the individual, so also for the Church, there […]
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