ἐκκλησία

You have probably heard, somewhere along the way, that the Greek word for “church” means “called-out ones.” Pastors, Sunday school teachers, and popular Bible-study authors have repeated this etymological claim for generations. The word, they say, is ekklēsia — from ek (“out of”) and kaleō (“to call”) — and so the church is the assembly of those who have been “called out” of the world to follow Christ.

This is the etymological fallacy the opening of this book warned about. The claim is half-true in the way that many etymological claims about Greek words are half-true: the elements of the compound (ek and kaleō) are really present, but the active meaning of the word in actual first-century Greek usage had long since faded from those etymological roots. By the time the New Testament was written, ekklēsia did not mean “called-out ones” to a Greek speaker any more than “breakfast” means “breaking the fast” to an English speaker. It means the morning meal. The etymology is interesting; it is not the active meaning of the word.

What ekklēsia actually meant in first-century Greek was assembly — particularly the assembly of citizens gathered for public business. In classical Athens, the ekklēsia was the citizens’ assembly, the highest governing body of the Athenian democracy, summoned by the herald to deliberate on the affairs of the city. The word was political and civic before it was religious. When Greek-speaking Jews translated the Hebrew Old Testament into the Septuagint, they used ekklēsia for the Hebrew qahal — the assembly of Israel gathered for worship and covenant. This is the lineage the New Testament inherits: the ekklēsia is the gathered assembly of God’s people, summoned together by the herald of the gospel, called to the purposes God has appointed for them.

This is the chapter on ekklēsia. It opens Part VI on the church and its offices. The chapter’s main task is to recover what ekklēsia actually means in the New Testament — assembly, gathering, the people of God called together — and to lay out the Lutheran answer to the questions of where this assembly is found and what makes it the church.

The Word

ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia), pronounced ek-klay-SEE-ah. A feminine noun. Etymologically a compound of ek (ἐκ, “out of, from”) and kaleō (καλέω, “to call”), as discussed above — but with the etymological elements having long since faded from the active meaning of the word. The family is small. The verbal form ekkaleō (ἐκκαλέω, “to call out, summon”) is rare; the primary New Testament usage is the noun ekklēsia itself. The broader kal- family (kaleō, klēsis, klētos) was treated in Chapter 40 on klēsis, and the connections are real, but the noun ekklēsia has developed its own distinctive theological weight in the New Testament.

The classical Greek background is essential because it shapes what first-century hearers would have heard when the apostles used the word. In Athens, the ekklēsia was the citizens’ assembly — the governing body of the democracy. Free male citizens (perhaps 30,000 to 50,000 of the population, depending on the period) had the right to attend. The assembly met regularly on a hill called the Pnyx, summoned by the herald (kēryx) whose proclamation called the citizens together. The assembly voted on matters of war and peace, on the passing of laws, on the election of magistrates, on the ostracism of citizens who had become dangerous to the city. The ekklēsia was where the city’s public business was conducted; it was the place where the gathered citizens exercised their authority. The word was political before it was religious.

When the Athenian democracy declined and Greek became the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean under Alexander’s successors and then under Rome, the word ekklēsia persisted in use for various kinds of public assemblies. The political dimension softened over time; the word came to mean simply “assembly” in a more general sense, applied to any deliberative or convened gathering. Acts 19 preserves this usage in its classical political form, where the assembly of the city of Ephesus (the silversmith riot) is called an ekklēsia three times (Acts 19:32, 39, 41). The word was capable of either secular or religious application; the New Testament’s specifically religious development of the word does not erase its broader Greek background but builds on it.

The Septuagint background is decisive for the New Testament’s theological use. When the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek beginning in the third century BC, the translators consistently used ekklēsia for the Hebrew qahal (“assembly, congregation, gathering”). The qahal in the Old Testament is the gathered congregation of Israel, particularly for worship and covenant — the assembly at Sinai, the assembly that hears the reading of the law, the assembly that gathers at the Tabernacle and Temple. Deuteronomy uses qahal Yahweh — translated into Greek as ekklēsia kyriou, “the assembly of the LORD” — for the gathered covenant people (Deut 23:1–3, 8; 1 Chr 28:8). The word ekklēsia in the Septuagint was already a theologically loaded term for God’s gathered people before any New Testament writer ever picked up a pen.

This is the inheritance the apostles draw on. When Jesus tells Peter, “on this rock I will build my church” (Matt 16:18, NET), He is not coining a new term. He is invoking the entire Septuagint history of qahal Yahweh — the assembly of God’s people — and locating Himself at its center as the one who will build it. The ekklēsia He builds is in continuity with the qahal of Israel and in fulfillment of God’s purposes for a gathered covenant people.

Range of Meaning

In its New Testament usage, ekklēsia covers:

• A local Christian assembly — the gathered believers in a particular city or household. The dominant New Testament usage. “The church in Corinth,” “the church in Ephesus,” “the church that meets in their house.”
• The universal church — the whole gathered people of God in Christ, across all places and times. Particularly in Ephesians and Colossians: “Christ is the head of the church”
• The eschatological assembly — the gathered people of God in their final state. Hebrews 12:23 names “and congregation of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, who have been made perfect,”
• A general assembly in the secular sense — the citizens’ or civic assembly. Acts 19 preserves this usage for the Ephesian crowd.

The dominant theological usages are the first two. The New Testament uses ekklēsia for both the local congregation and the universal church without distinction in vocabulary — the same word covers both because the same gathering principle is at work in both. The local ekklēsia in Corinth is the universal ekklēsia as it appears in that particular place. The universal ekklēsia is the gathering of all the local ekklēsiai across all times and places. The relationship is not abstract-to-concrete or whole-to-part in any rigid sense; the local assembly is the universal assembly in local manifestation, and the universal assembly is the local assemblies gathered together by the one Spirit into the one body of Christ.

Where You’ll Meet It

“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” (Matthew 16:18, NET)

The first New Testament occurrence of ekklēsia on Jesus’s lips. The Greek is mou tēn ekklēsian — “my assembly.” The dispute over what “this rock” refers to (Peter as person, Peter as representative of the apostles, Peter’s confession of faith) is famous and not finally resolvable, though confessional Lutheran exegesis has generally followed the patristic-and-Reformation reading that the rock is Peter’s confession (“you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”) rather than Peter himself as person or office. What is not disputable: Christ promises that He Himself will build the ekklēsia, and that the ekklēsia He builds will outlast the gates of hell. The church is Christ’s church. The building is Christ’s doing. The endurance is Christ’s promise.

“If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen to the church, treat him like a Gentile or a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:17, NET)

The second of Jesus’s two uses of ekklēsia. The context is church discipline — the procedure for addressing sin between believers when private reconciliation fails. The ekklēsia here is clearly the local assembly, which has authority to address such matters. This verse contributes to the Lutheran understanding of the church as the gathered community with real authority entrusted by Christ, not merely as a collection of individuals.

“to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” (1 Corinthians 1:2, NET)

Paul’s opening to 1 Corinthians. The salutation is rich. The church is named “the church of God” (tē ekklēsia tou theou) — God’s assembly, not the Corinthians’ own. The location is specified — “in Corinth” — but the salutation immediately extends to “all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The local assembly is greeted alongside the universal assembly; the two are not separated; both are addressed in the one letter. This is the New Testament’s characteristic pattern: the local ekklēsia is the universal ekklēsia as it exists in that place, and the universal ekklēsia is the sum of the local ekklēsiai gathered into one body in Christ.

“He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things.” (Colossians 1:18, NET)

Paul’s compressed Christological statement of what the church is and Whose it is. Christ is “the head of the body, the church.” The church is His body — His own ongoing physical-spiritual extension in the world. He is the head. The head and the body are inseparable. The church derives its life from Christ; Christ exercises His ongoing ministry through the church; the believer participates in Christ by belonging to the body. This image — head and body — is one of the most powerful in the New Testament’s ecclesiology and runs through Paul’s letters in various forms.

“Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word, so that he may present the church to himself as glorious—not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25–27, NET)

The marriage analogy. The ekklēsia is Christ’s bride, and Christ’s love for her is sacrificial — He gave Himself up for her. The cleansing is “the washing of the water by the word” — a baptismal reference that connects the ekklēsia directly to the means of grace. The destination is eschatological: the bride presented “glorious—not having a stain or wrinkle.” The church’s perfection is future and gift; her present existence is real but mixed, awaiting the eschatological purification Christ Himself will accomplish.

“But you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the assembly and congregation of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, who have been made perfect,” (Hebrews 12:22–23, NET)

The eschatological ekklēsia. The phrase “congregation of the firstborn” is ekklēsia prōtotokōn — the assembly of those who are firstborn (a Christological title in Heb 1:6 and elsewhere, here applied to those who are conformed to the firstborn). The Hebrews author locates the church not on a particular earthly mountain but on the heavenly Mount Zion — already gathered with the angels, the saints made perfect, and Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. The church on earth participates in the heavenly assembly through the means of grace; the eschatological church is already real and present to faith.

“saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you.” … I will declare your name to my countrymen. In the middle of the assembly I will praise you.” (Hebrews 2:12; Psalm 22:22, NET)

The author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 22 and applies it to Christ. The “congregation” — ekklēsia in the Greek — is the gathered people of God among whom the risen Christ Himself sings the praise of the Father. This verse names something striking: Christ Himself is present in the ekklēsia, singing praise with His people. The church’s worship is not a human attempt to reach God; it is participation in Christ’s own worship of the Father, in the gathered assembly where He Himself is present.

What Confessional Lutherans Hear

In ekklēsia the confessional Lutheran ear catches two notes the broader Christian conversation often softens or mishandles.

First, the church is the assembly of believers where the gospel is purely preached and the sacraments are rightly administered. This is the foundational Lutheran definition of the church, given in Augsburg Confession Article VII:

“It is also taught that at all times there must be and remain one holy, Christian church. It is the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is purely preached and the holy sacraments are administered according to the gospel.”[^1]

This is the notae ecclesiae — the marks of the church. Two marks: pure preaching of the gospel, and right administration of the sacraments. Where these are present, there is the church. Where they are absent or distorted, there is not the church — at least not in the proper sense. The marks are objective: they can be observed, confessed, and tested. The church is not located in a particular building, a particular hierarchy, a particular nation, or a particular feeling. It is located where the marks are present.

This Lutheran definition has substantial consequences. The church is not identified with any particular institutional structure. The Roman Catholic identification of the church with the Roman hierarchy and the papacy is rejected — the visible Roman church may have the marks where it preaches the gospel and administers the sacraments faithfully, but it is not the church because it is Roman; it is the church to the extent that the marks are present. The Anabaptist identification of the church with a purified, visibly holy community is rejected — the visible church on earth is mixed, and its marks do not require visible perfection. The modern American identification of “church” with personal spirituality independent of any gathered community is rejected — the marks of the church require an assembly, a Word preached, sacraments administered, all gathered around Christ’s appointed means.

This means the visible church on earth is, properly, a mixed reality. Some who appear to be members may not be (because they do not actually believe); some who do not appear to be members may yet be (because God alone knows the heart). The visible community gathered around Word and Sacrament is the form in which the true church appears in this world — but the true church is finally a matter of faith, known fully only to God.

The Lutheran tradition has handled this distinction with care. Properly speaking, the ekklēsia is the assembly of true believers, known fully only to God. As it appears in this world, the ekklēsia is the visible gathering around Word and Sacrament, with mixed membership. AC VIII addresses the mixed-membership question directly:

“Even though the Christian church is, properly speaking, the assembly of saints and those who truly believe, nevertheless, because in this life many false Christians, hypocrites, and even public sinners are mixed in with the godly, it is permissible to use the sacraments even when they are administered by ungodly priests.”[^2]

The sacraments are effective by God’s institution, not by the holiness of the minister or the purity of the visible congregation. The Word is the Word whether the preacher is holy or not. The Supper is Christ’s body and blood whether the communicant next to you is sincere or not. The Lutheran insistence on objective means of grace shapes how the church is identified and how the believer relates to the imperfect visible community he is part of. The believer does not need to verify the holiness of every other person in the pew before receiving the means of grace; Christ has given the means objectively, and they remain Christ’s means regardless of the spiritual condition of those administering or those receiving alongside.

Second, the unity of the church is grounded in the gospel and sacraments, not in uniform structures or ceremonies. AC VII continues:

“It is enough for the true unity of the Christian church that the gospel is preached harmoniously according to a pure understanding and the sacraments are administered in conformity with the divine Word. It is not necessary for the true unity of the Christian church that uniform ceremonies, instituted by human beings, be observed everywhere.”[^1]

The unity of the church is doctrinal and sacramental, not ceremonial or institutional. Where the gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered, the church is one — regardless of differences in liturgy, language, music, vestments, or organizational structure. This has been a Lutheran emphasis from the Reformation forward. Lutherans across the world hold the same faith and confess the same doctrine, even as they worship in many different languages, with many different liturgical practices, in many different organizational forms. The unity is in the substance, not in the visible uniformity.

This pushes back against:

• The Roman Catholic insistence that uniform structures under the papacy are essential to the church’s unity. Lutheran response: unity is in the gospel preached and the sacraments rightly administered, not in submission to a particular human office.
• The Eastern Orthodox insistence on uniformity of liturgical tradition and episcopal succession. Lutheran response: while liturgical continuity and pastoral oversight are good and salutary, they are not what constitutes the church’s unity.
• The Anabaptist purity model that grounds unity in the visible holiness of the gathered community. Lutheran response: the visible church on earth is mixed; the marks of the church do not require visible perfection.
• Modern denominational anxieties that treat institutional fragmentation as necessarily destroying the church’s unity. Lutheran response: the true church extends across denominational lines wherever the marks are present; institutional separation does not necessarily indicate ecclesial separation.

The pastoral payoff: when you go to church on Sunday, you are participating in the ekklēsia — the assembly of God’s people gathered around Word and Sacrament. The building you walk into is not the church; the institution that owns the building is not the church; the people who happen to be in your pew are not yet the church merely by being there. The church is the assembly gathered around Christ in the means He has appointed. As the gospel is preached and the sacraments administered, the church is present. You are part of the body. The body is Christ’s. The unity of the body is in the Christ who is the head.

This also has implications for how the believer chooses where to attend and how to relate to other Christian traditions. The Lutheran tradition has not been indifferent to where the believer attends — pure preaching and right administration matter, and where these are absent or distorted, the believer is not receiving the gifts Christ has given for his benefit. The Lutheran tradition has also recognized that the true church extends beyond Lutheran denominational structures. Wherever the gospel is preached and the sacraments rightly administered, with appropriate confessional content, there is the church.

Where People Get It Wrong

Three common ways.

The first is the etymological fallacy with which this chapter opened — “ekklēsia means called-out ones.” The Lutheran response: the active meaning is assembly; the etymology has faded from active sense; the careful reader does not build doctrine on etymological elements that the word no longer carries.

The second is identifying the church with the building, the institution, or the particular denominational structure. The Lutheran response: the ekklēsia is the assembly, not the building; the marks of the church identify it, not the institutional structure that houses it; the true church extends across denominational boundaries wherever the gospel is preached and the sacraments rightly administered.

The third is the “you don’t need church” individualism that is particularly common in modern American Christianity. The Lutheran response: Christ has given His gifts through the means of grace, administered in the ekklēsia. To absent oneself from the assembly is to absent oneself from the means by which Christ ordinarily works. The Christian life is corporate. The gifts are given in the gathered community. The believer who imagines he can sustain Christian life independently of the church has misunderstood the structure of the New Testament’s actual Christianity.

A fourth pattern worth noting: the purity-church model. The Anabaptist and Restorationist traditions have sometimes insisted on a visible community free from hypocrites and false believers, treating any mixed-membership reality as evidence that the true church must be sought elsewhere. The Lutheran response: AC VIII addresses this directly; the visible church on earth is mixed; the sacraments work by God’s institution regardless of the minister’s holiness or the congregation’s perfection; the believer is not called to verify the spiritual condition of every other member before receiving the means of grace.

A fifth pattern: treating denominational identity as final identity. The mistake of identifying “the church” with one’s particular synodical body or denomination. The Lutheran response: the true church extends beyond any particular institutional structure. Lutherans confess what they confess because it is true, not because Lutherans confess it; the test of the church is not which denominational tradition one belongs to but whether the gospel is preached purely and the sacraments rightly administered in the assembly one attends.

So What

You are part of the ekklēsia. The assembly of God’s people. The body of Christ. The household of faith. The gathered community where Christ is present in Word and Sacrament. This is what the New Testament means by “church” — not the building you walk into, not the institution that owns the building, not the particular synodical body you belong to, not even the people who happen to be in your pew this Sunday by themselves. The church is the assembly that gathers around Christ in the means He has appointed.

For Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders: when you teach a passage with “church” language, watch for the ekklēsia. Help your students see that the word does not mean “called-out ones” in any active sense — it means assembly, the gathered people of God. The local congregation is an ekklēsia. The universal church is an ekklēsia. The same word covers both because the same gathering principle is at work: God’s people called together by the herald of the gospel, assembled around Christ’s Word and table, made one body by the one Spirit.

For yourself: when you walk into church on Sunday, see what is happening. The herald of the gospel is calling the assembly. The Word is being preached. The sacraments are being administered. Christ is present in the means He has appointed. You are in the ekklēsia — the same ekklēsia that has gathered for two thousand years across every continent and culture, hearing the same gospel, receiving the same Christ, sharing the same body and blood. The church is not somewhere else. The church is right here, in the assembly around the Word and table. You belong. The body is yours; you are the body’s. Christ is the head; Christ is the one who gathers; Christ is the one who keeps the assembly His own.

This opens Part VI. The chapters ahead will treat the offices of the church — presbyteros (elder, Ch 45), episkopos (overseer or bishop, Ch 46), and diakonos (deacon or servant, Ch 47). These offices serve the ekklēsia. They do not constitute it. The church is the assembly, gathered around Christ’s Word and table. The offices exist to serve the assembly by ensuring that the Word is preached purely and the sacraments are administered rightly. Where the assembly is, there must be the offices; where the offices serve the gospel faithfully, there is the assembly’s life and growth.

If You Want to Go Deeper

For the lexical work, BDAG on ἐκκλησία¹ traces the term from its classical Greek political-assembly background through the Septuagint translation of qahal into the New Testament’s specifically Christian theological development. The article in Kittel’s Theological Dictionary² is by Karl Ludwig Schmidt and treats the entire kal- word group, including substantial coverage of how ekklēsia relates to the Septuagint’s qahal and to the broader New Testament theology of the gathered people of God.

For the foundational Lutheran ecclesiology, Augsburg Confession Articles VII and VIII³⁴ are the primary confessional texts. Apology of the Augsburg Confession Article VII/VIII (Of the Church)⁵ gives Melanchthon’s extended defense and elaboration of the AC’s ecclesiology, with particular attention to the questions of the marks of the church and the relationship between visible and hidden dimensions. Luther’s treatise “On the Councils and the Church” (1539)⁶ develops the doctrine of the marks of the church at greater length and adds additional marks beyond Word and Sacrament — Luther listed seven marks in that treatise, though the AC’s two have remained the standard confessional reference.

For modern Lutheran ecclesiology, Hermann Sasse’s Here We Stand: Nature and Character of the Lutheran Faith⁷ gives a foundational twentieth-century confessional Lutheran treatment of the church and its marks, including the question of how Lutheran identity relates to the broader Christian tradition. Werner Elert’s The Structure of Lutheranism⁸ handles the doctrine of the church within the broader structure of Lutheran theology, with attention to how the church relates to the means of grace and to the offices of ministry. For a recent confessional Lutheran treatment, Charles Arand, Robert Kolb, and James Nestingen’s The Lutheran Confessions: History and Theology of the Book of Concord⁹ provides accessible exposition of the AC’s ecclesiology in its historical and doctrinal context.

Francis Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics¹⁰ treats the doctrine of the church in volume 3, with the standard confessional Lutheran exposition of the marks, the visible/hidden distinction, and the relationship between the local and universal church. For the corporate-spiritual dimension of the church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s early dissertation Sanctorum Communio¹¹ offers a Lutheran (though distinctively Bonhoefferian) treatment of the church as the communion of saints, with substantial sociological as well as theological analysis; readers should be aware that Bonhoeffer’s later thought developed in directions some confessional Lutherans have found problematic, but the dissertation remains a substantive Lutheran contribution to ecclesiology.