The Radical Resurgence

Decision-making.

It cannot be without significance that in both cases where Jesus used the term “church” (ekklesia), the concept of “binding/loosing” was connected to it (Matt.16:18; 18:17). John Yoder summarises some key aspects and implications of this ‘‘binding/loosing” function in the church:

Two aspects of meaning. (1) Forgiveness: to “bind” is to withhold fellowship, to ‘‘loose” is to forgive . . . . (2) Moral discernment: to “bind” is to enjoin, to forbid or make obligatory; to “loose” is to leave free, to permit . . . . Moral teaching and decision-making in Judaism took the form of rulings by the rabbis on problem cases brought to them, either ‘‘binding” or “loosing” depending on how they saw the Law applying to each case . . . .

By taking over these terms from established rabbinic usage, Jesus assigns to his disciples an authority to bind and loose previously claimed only by the great teachers in Israel . . . The promise of the presence of Christ “where two or three are gathered in my name” in the original context of Matt. 18:19-20 refers to the divinely authorised process of decision.

The word ekklesia itself does not refer to a specifically religious meeting, nor to a particular organisation: it rather means the “assembly,” the gathering of a people into a meeting for deliberation or for a public pronouncement . . . . The church is where, because there Jesus is confessed as Christ, people are empowered to speak to one another in God’s name . . . .

We understand more clearly and correctly the priority of the congregation when we study what it is that it is to do. It is only in the local face-to-face meeting, with brethren and sisters who know one another well, that this process can take place of which Jesus says that what has been decided stands decided in heaven . . . .