With the church of all ages, we confess the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” In the following courses, we want to study the doctrine of the church. The theological expression for the Doctrine of the Church is “Ecclesiology”. This term is derived from two Greek words, “ekklesia” and “logia’’. Ekklesia means “congregation” or “assembly”, and logia means “word” or “logic”. The combination of these two words means “the study of the church.” Ecclesiology is one of the major areas of study in Christian Systematic Theology and investigates what the Bible teaches about the church, both universal—all believers in Christ, and local—local gatherings of believers in Christ. Ecclesiology is crucial to understanding God’s purpose for believers in the world today.