Previous installments: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2.
To summarize Otis Q. Sellers’s teaching on ekklēsia presented so far in this series, “by the rule of usage in the New Testament,” καλέω (kaleō) means “to position, to appoint, to place, to name, or to designate.”
These terms are synonymous, “agreeing in the sense of declaring a person as being one’s choice for an office or position. It was also shown that to call, summon, invite, and bid are secondary meanings.”
Furthermore, ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) “was formed by the addition of [ἐκ] ek (out) to the verbal adjective [κλητός] kletos, and that this combination means ‘out-positioned,’ also, that this word can be applied to any individual, company, or nation that has a position out of another.”[1]
This word is a participle; that is, a word that combines the characteristics of a verb with an adjective. It can correctly be parsed as a verbal adjective, and in Scripture is used as a noun.
Sellers then considers those he calls “ekklēsia men,” Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, and Aaron.
The mysterious man Melchizedek . . . was a priest of the most high God (Hebrews 7:1), and he was the king of Salem. His position, both as king and priest of that city-state, was out of God. Therefore, we can truly say that he was an out-positioned or ekklēsia man. See Genesis 14:18-20.