The doctrine of the ekklesia is something that seems to be mostly avoided on TOL. But there is such a doctrine.
John Wycliffe in his 1382 English translation of the Latin ecclesia used chirche. For example, Wycliffe says for Acts 6: 1, "But Saul was consentynge to his deth. And greet persecucioun was maad that dai in the chirche, that was in Jerusalem."
William Tyndale did not follow Wycliffe in using chirche, which would have been conistent with the Catholic meaning of Church, but instead used congregation for ekklesia consistently except for two verses in Acts where he used churche to mean a pagan place of worship. For example, Tyndale's translation for Acts 8: 1 says "Saul had pleasure in his deeth. And at yt tyme there was a great persecucion agaynst the congregacion which was at Ierusalem."
Theodore Beza in 1556 returned to the use of church to translate ekklesia - and the Geneva Bible followed him, using church instead of congregation. Then the King James followed the Geneva Bible and used church.
I Peter 5: 2-3 says "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3. Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock."
The Capital C Church - whether Roman Catholic, Calvinist or Christian Zionist - rules over those who claim to be God's heritage.
By about the 4th century, religionists, with political rulers included among them, who mixed Pagan religion with the Gospel, began to create the Capital C Church.
Centuries after the Reformation, W.A. Crisswell, a dispensationalist, at the 1988 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in
San Antonio, got a resolution passed critical of the older Southern Baptist belief in the "priesthood of the believer" and promoted the authority of the Baptist clergy over the doctrines of the church members. Crisswell told a group of pastors that "the man of God who is the pastor of the church is the ruler."
The priesthood of the believer means that the believer has the authority from God to bring Christian doctrines and morality to the world - and also to be his own "priest" in interpreting the word of God. To be your own "priest" or preacher you must first know the truth from Scripture and have a strong love for it. Otherwise, the believer as "priest" simply accepts for himself some set of false doctrines and tries to make others believe the false doctrines.
Since Crisswell was a dispensationalist and dispensationalism is taught and maintained within a church system in which the preacher is the authority and rules over the beliefs of the members, he opposed the doctrine. The older pre-dispensationalist Southern Baptist priesthood of the believer does not work within the dispensationalist church system which rules over the beliefs of the members to make sure they follow dispensationalist doctrines.
J. Dwight Pentecost in his book Things To Come ( 1965) says "The church and Israel are two distinct groups with whom God has a divine plan."
Thats separation theology, which does not know it is grammatically illiterate. Church, from ekklesia, is a common noun, but Israel is unique, a proper noun. The ekklesia could correctly be a meeting of Israel, but to say that the Meeting and Israel are the two peoples of God does not make sense grammatically.
