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Benajah Carroll, Ecclesia (Complete)

Is The Church Local, Or Universal?

17 May 2019, by

“And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven …”—Matthew 16:18-19

This passage, Matthew 16:18-19, has been for many centuries a battle-ground of theological controversies. Though millions of the disputants have passed away, the questions which arrayed them against each other still survive to align their successors in hostile array.

The most important of these divisive questions are:

1. What is the church?
2. Who established it and when?
3. What is the foundation?
4. What are the “gates of hell?”
5. What are the “keys?”
6. What is the “binding and loosing?”

In this lecture there will be time for answer to the first question only:

WHAT IS THE CHURCH?

From the given list of passages, taken from the Englishman’s Greek Concordance, and which you may verify by reference to the Bible, it appears that the…

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Ecclesia, New Testament References

17 May 2019, by

[In the original Appendix, B. H. Carroll provides a comprehensive overview on how the term ecclesia is used in a wide range of literature (Classic Use, Septuagint, Apocrypha, Old and New Testaments). As the object of uploading Carroll’s overview of the church is to provide a simple examination into the subject, the editor has included only the references found in the New Testament. If you wish to read Carroll’s booklet in full, you may easily find it available with a simple Google search.

The reader is encouraged to examine the 118 references to ecclesia in the New Testament, as it will easily be discovered that they fall into one of three categories—(1) Abstract/Generic; (2) Particular, Local Congregations; (3) Prospective, a Future Congregation when Christ Returns (but even this will be a visible and local congregation, or church).]

NEW TESTAMENT USAGE OF ECCLESIA

Matthew

16:18 – “I will build my church.”
18:17 – “Tell (it) unto the church: but…

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