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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 18:17 - 18:17
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17. εἰπὲ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. The word ἐκκλησία is found only here and ch. Mat 16:18 (where see note) in the Gospels. In the former passage the reference to the Christians Church is undoubted. Here either (1) the assembly or congregation of the Jewish synagogue, or rather, (2) the ruling body of the synagogue (collegium presbyterorum, Schleusner) is meant. This must have been the sense of the word to those who were listening to Christ. But what was spoken of the Jewish Church was naturally soon applied to the Christian Church. And the use of the term by Christ implied for the future an organised Church exercising discipline, organised too at least in part on the model of the synagogue.
ὁ ἐθνικὸς καὶ ὁ τελώνης. Jesus, the friend of publicans and sinners, uses the phrase of his contemporaries. What Jesus says, Matthew the publican records. ἐθνικός, the adjective of ἔθνη, in the special Jewish sense of ‘Gentiles,’ in Polybius ἐθνικὸς = ‘national.’