Titles of The Church (5)

Sermon by Pastor Sylvia Chan

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^NAU  Ephesians 2:19 ¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,

Apostle Paul says to the Christians in Ephesian church that they are of God’s household. What does the word household mean?

God’s Household means God’s family

I check the meaning of the word “household”  in the English dictionaries:

• A house and its occupants regarded as a unit. (Oxford English Dictionary)
• The people in a family or other goup that are living together in one house (Merriam-Webster English Dictionary)

According to these English dictionaries, people in the household may or may not be one family, as long as they live together in the same unit, they are considered in the same household.

Then what about the meaning in Greek? The Greek word for “household” is “οἰκεῖος” (oikeios), it means:

• members of a family, relative (Friberg, Analytical Greek Lexicon).
• persons who are related by kinship or circumstances and form a closely knit group (Bauer-Danker, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament)
• one who belongs to a particular household or extended family (Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament)

All three Greek dictionaries define oikeios as family (or kinship), not just people living in the same house.

Apostle Paul says Christians are of God’s household, that means we are of God’s family, therefore each one of us is a member of God’s family.

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