Church #22

Ekklesia comes from a root meaning “called out” or “called together” (ek, “out,” plus kaleo, “to call”), and in classical Greek usage referred to the political assembly of citizens summoned to deliberate civic matters — a public gathering with legal standing, not a religious term at all. The Septuagint had already used it to translate the Hebrew qahal, the “assembly” of Israel gathered before God.

Biblical Usage

Jesus uses the word to describe the community he intends to build: “on this rock I will build my church [ekklesia], and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Acts describes the earliest church’s actual life together — devoted to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer, and holding possessions in common (Acts 2:42-47), a concrete picture of what “called-out assembly” looked like in practice.

Theological Significance

Paul extends ekklesia beyond any single local gathering to describe the whole body of believers everywhere and across time, calling the church “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23) — the same word used for a local congregation’s weekly assembly also names the entire, universal community united to Christ.