Good News

The Household of Faith

What should we call people who have received the good news, and are experiencing the Kingdom of God? The Apostolic Writings use a variety of phrases which can be confusing.

In Paul's letters, he tries to be more careful and less confusing. He uses the phrases "household of faith" or "household of God" (Galatians 6:10, Ephesians 2:19) to refer to all of Yeshua's followers. The phrases make the point that Yeshua's followers are not only children of God and servants of God, but "adult" heirs in the family of God.

Paul has a second purpose in coining these phrases: he is seeking to avoid the ambiguity in the language of the synoptic gospels that sometimes the phrases "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of Heaven" refer to the future, when the Messiah will directly rule all the earth, and sometimes these phrases refer to the present, when this Kingdom is active in the lives of Yeshua's followers but not yet fully established on earth.

Paul wishes to be more precise. He avoids "Kingdom of Heaven", and only uses "Kingdom of God" to refer to the future, fully-established divine Kingdom. Thus he needs new language to refer to what we presently can experience, and so he uses "household of faith" and "household of God".

The Apostolic Writings contain yet other synonymous phrases for the group of all of Yeshua's followers. There is a global "assembly" (in Matthew 16:18, as well as Ephesians 3:10 and 5:27, the noun ekklesia is singular). There may also be a global "body of Messiah" but it is likely all occurrences of this phrase apply to specific, local congregations.