“in the New Testament the word ‘church’ always means ‘a gathering’ or ‘an assembly.’”8 As for ideas of the universal church, Knox states “It is impossible to discover in the New Testament any other link or relationship of the local churches one with the other than this invisible bond of mutual love of the members one for the other.”9 He argues that using the word church “to describe all our Christian brethren at present living in the world” is a nonbiblical usage.10 Similarly, Donald Robinson states that “although we often speak of these congregations collectively as the NT church or the early church, no NT writer uses ekklesia in this collective way.”11 O’Brien writes: “Although we often speak of a group of congregations collectively as ‘the church’ (i.e. of a denomination) neither Paul nor the rest of the New Testament uses ekklēsia in this collective way.”12 Finally, after surveying usage in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Banks concludes: “the idea of a unified provincial or national church is as foreign to Paul’s thinking as the notion of a universal church.”13
The implications of this understanding of ἐκκλησία are significant for this study, in particular for the interchurch dimension of ecclesial solidarity. The argument of Knox and others requires further investigation, which will require engagement with usage in Greek literature and the Septuagint (chapter 2 of this book), before examining the Pauline corpus (chapters 3 to 6).
As can be seen from the foregoing, these definitions are in a sense provisional, and in the conclusion to this study I will comment on their suitability.
Interchurch Relationships: A Neglected Area
This study will highlight interchurch relationships, because they are a neglected area of study for five reasons.
First, interchurch relationships are neglected when the church beyond the local is excluded from the discussion of church. O’Brien asks “What then are the responsibilities which the New Testament sets before the people of God who live in the overlap of the ages, between the first and second comings of Christ, and who already partake of the life of heaven while still dwelling on earth?”14 His answer is to examine Colossians 3:1—4:6, putting his focus squarely on the individual and the local church. Knox states “Interdependence, not independence, is the true Christian relationship. Congregations should be in fellowship with one another.”15 However, the dynamics of that fellowship are not explored. Robinson argues that the New Testament guidance on this is “that there should be some point or points at which the members of all churches in the area sometimes meet together,”16 but that what happens when they meet is not stipulated. He is more concerned here to show what is not mandated than what is. The validity of the focus of Knox, Robinson, O’Brien, and others will be examined in chapter 2; here I wish to note this practical outworking of it.
Second, interchurch relationships are neglected by a focus on particular elements of the doctrine of the church. This can be seen in the discussion of the relationship between the “local” church and the “whole” church. Bultmann argues that the “whole” church is the prior idea, because the church as the people of God as a notion came before the local church,17 and because of the eschatological consciousness of the first church in Jerusalem as the church in the last days.18 Guthrie is representative of a number of scholars who would disagree with this analysis, arguing from Paul’s letters that Paul talks of “the community of believers in a specified locality,” and that the universal church only becomes explicit in Ephesians and Colossians.19 However, in both Guthrie and Bultmann, there is a tendency to view the issue of interchurch solidarity as solved once the universal and local distinction is defined. So Guthrie states: “for any adequate understanding of Paul’s view of the nature of the church, both local and universal aspects must be given full weight”;20 however, his conclusion to this section is “that each local group was in its own right a church of God, but none could be isolated from the rest.”21 This conclusion may or may not be valid; it certainly does not offer much in the way of clarifying interchurch solidarity. Similarly, Bultmann’s discussion of “church consciousness” is a discussion of life in the local church, with only a passing reference to the Jerusalem council and the importance of church unity.22
There is also a related concern with church structures. So Schnelle, having defined the local congregation as representing the whole church in a particular location, states that Paul “knows no hierarchical structure that connects local congregations and the whole church, but each part or manifestation of the church can in turn stand for the whole.”23 While this comment may be a necessary corrective to certain dogmatic positions, it does not answer the question of how one church should relate to another in terms of ecclesial solidarity.
Third, there is a tendency to focus on the local congregation in a way which deliberately or practically excludes discussion of interchurch relationships. Samra focuses exclusively on maturity within the local congregation.24 Hellerman focuses on the church as a family, and his attention is on individual churches. His approach is similar to many, in that once he has defined the community, he then deals with life together, decision-making, and leadership.25 The precise topics may differ in other treatments, but the focus on the internal dynamics of the individual church remains.26 For all the work done on the internal workings of the ἐκκλησία in the first century—for example, how they were led,27 how members related to one another,28 and parallels with other first-century organizations29—there is still need to examine how churches did or should relate to one another.
The focus on the internal dynamics of the community is perhaps most explicit in the work of Banks, who begins his study of the Pauline church by saying “it is the internal dynamics of Paul’s communities that we are chiefly concerned to investigate, not the external responsibilities of their members to the world around them.”30 In acknowledging only two sets of relationships, those internal to the community and those with the world outside, Banks explicitly (and others implicitly31) exclude a third potential set of relationships: those between one ἐκκλησία and another ἐκκλησία: interchurch solidarity.
Fourth, in examining how ἐκκλησία is used in the Pauline corpus, there is a focus on development in Paul’s letters. A classic statement of this developmental case in the Pauline corpus can be found in the work of MacDonald. Beginning with the premise that “it is generally held that from the middle of the first century to the middle of the second century the church became more tightly organised,”
