Was the Feast of Pentecost Really the Beginning of 'The Church'?


I just heard the commonly made statement that the church of Jesus Christ began on the day of Pentecost.  As I heard that statement it dawned on me that this is incorrect.

The Feast of Pentecost fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was the day when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples of Jesus who were praying in an upper room in the City of Jerusalem.  But did that coincide with the 'beginning of 'the church'?

First of all, one must realize that the term 'the church' is a mis-translation of the Greek word 'Ekklesia', which means a  'Called-out group of people'.

May I suggest that the Ekklesia of Jesus Christ began when He called out His first disciples, Simon Peter and Andrew, early in his ministry, and that He continued to 'build His Ekklesia' each time He called someone to Himself and that person responded to Him in obedience to His call.

The significance of this proper understanding of the term 'Ekklesia' is profound, and currently lost due to the mistranslation of Ekklesia as 'the church' - which means 'a lordship' and comes from the Greek word 'Kuriakos', which is seldom used in the Bible.  If the followers of Jesus are only those who have obediently responded to His call out of  their former lives be to accompany Him wherever He wants to go each day, then we can understand that those who have not received that call from Jesus, or have not obediently responded to the call to a new life with Jesus, are not part of 'the Ekklesia of God'.

Jesus told the messenger of the ekklesia in Laodicea that he wanted him to be hot or cold, but the fact that he was lukewarm and neither hot or cold resulted in Jesus' promise to 'spew him out of His mouth'!  That does not sound appealing, whatever it means.  And the fact that believers in Jesus throughout the past two thousand years have allowed anyone who joins 'the church' to think of themselves as followers of Jesus regardless of their desire to obey and accompany Him wherever He wants to take them  has resulted in a multitude of lukewarm people who think of themselves as followers of Jesus, and even leaders of other 'Christians'.

So I ask you, dear reader, has Jesus called you to accompany Him wherever He wants to go and to do whatever He wants to do with you, or are you still gone astray from God and His plan for your life to follow your own way?  I ask that because it is written:

Isa_53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, each one to his own way; and Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

It takes an affirmative turn from our own way to become a follower of Jesus.  I know.  I once was lost, but He found me out wandering on my own, and when I bowed my knees in surrender to His Lordship over my life and asked Him to come into my heart, everything changed for the better!

Today can be your day of turning from your own way to Jesus by receiving Him as your Savior from sin and the Lord of Your life, and the only One Who can take you to our Heavenly Father for complete reconciliation!

Behold, God has chosen a day for each of us to be saved from our sinful wandering away from Him, and today is the day of salvation.  It is never tomorrow, because no one is guaranteed to live to tomorrow!!