English translators of the scriptures saw the New Testament with religious (catholic) lenses. So these obeyed the politico-religious powers and consistently translated the Greek word ekklesia into a current religious word, ‘church’ which everyone already knew, being taught and accepted as truth, instead of the real meaning of the Greek word, which is assembly or gathering—a word in the Ancient World which had no religious or institutional connotations at all. None.

This is clearly shown by the translators’ inconsistency in translating the same Greek word by assembly or gathering three times in Acts 19—the story of Paul’s gospel stirring up the silversmiths in Ephesus—instead of the c… word! Check me out. I kid you not.

Ekklesia always meant assembly or gathering in the Ancient World of the New Testament period. When Paul wrote to those gatherings of Jesus’ people in the New Testament period, he qualified the word ekklesia by e.g., the ekklesia in God the Father and His son at . . . . (wherever—Corinth, etc) or similar language. It had to be distinguished from all the other local gatherings—religious, political or commercial which abounded in great numbers.  Get it?

And if Paul was talking about more than one gathering of believers, he used the plural, ekklesiai, gatherings. So we read about the “assemblies or gatherings of Judea” and not “the gathering of Judea”. John does not address any “assembly of or in Asia” in the Book of Revelation but as “the seven gatherings in Asia”. Seven! And that’s because they are assemblies not denominations or institutional religious organisations.

In fact, a strong case can be made that ekklesia originally meant “a gathering actually gathered” so that when the assembly broke up there was no longer a gathering. For example the riotous assembly, Acts 19:41. Naturally for a group of believers meeting regularly it would continue in their minds as a spiritual gathering, a virtual one, which had a (hopeful) continuity while not meeting—though could never be guaranteed that it would gather again exactly the same as it did the previous time.

So it’s like our parliaments which sit for a period but then when not sitting, there is no parliament. And a city council is really only a council when it is meeting. The employees are not the actual council, are they?

William Tyndale in his groundbreaking 16th Century English New Testament translation, rendered ekklesia as ‘congregation’ which then had no traditional religious connotation. This led to his being persecuted and strangulated by the religious establishment—that’s 1534 English history.

So why did the English Bible translators three times translate ekklesia as ‘assembly’ in the story in Acts (Acts 19:32, 39, 41)? The word church clearly wouldn’t fit these three meeting contexts. But wearing their religious glasses, they consistently translated the Greek word in other contexts as ‘church’ as if this Roman Catholic term was its equivalent and not as the word was understood in the Ancient World.

A century later, the translators of the King James Version (KJV)  were commanded by James the King of England to abide by about 14 conditions one of which the Greek word ekklesia had to be translated as church. They had no option but to do what James wanted so he could maintain his political agenda. They did translate the word as assembly in the Acts 19 story.

You may be interested to know that now we can use a recent scholarly translation called World English Bible (WEB) which translates the Greek word ekklesia with the English word assembly in the New Testament. In this version, the word ‘church’ cannot be found.

What has kept English translators so long to correct this?

Tradition! which obscures the word of God.

We may ask: why did the apostles use the Greek word ekklesia (gathering) and not other words which had a similar meaning? They did not use the word synagogue for the obvious reason that their gatherings were distinguished from those of the Jews.

Now, the Hebrew word qahal (=gathering, assembly) had been used in the Old Testament over 100 times and in the Greek translation of the OT (called the Septuagint or “LXX”) this Hebrew word was translated ekklesia (gathering). The early New Testament writers widely used the LXX and so probably chose this word which was also used by Jesus (see Matthew 16:18 and 18:17—the only places in the 4 gospels).

14 responses to “OH, THAT WRETCHED WORD ‘CHURCH’

  1. Brian Mallalieu

    Thanks, Ian, for your response. The cheapest & quickest way to read Steve Simm’s book is via Kindle (with free app if necessary). May I encourage you to write in more detail (as Steve does) about your gatherings, if only for the benefit of those of us who are seeking to move into that format in the future? As you appreciate no doubt, the words given to John Wimber originally were prophetic by a saintly sister in Jesus, whom he admittedly tried to avoid!


    • Thanks Brian for your encouragement to write in more detail as Steve does about our gatherings. Are these found in his book or elsewhere? I tend to write posts only when I believe I am moved by the Lord.
      Every meet is different. Constant is to love and accept one another and encourage every person to contribute and report what the Lord is teaching them and doing in their lives and in others. On Tuesday nights we start with a meal which we regard as the Lord’s often with bread and wine. We make decisions affecting when and how to meet together. We practice ‘power under’ as much as possible. We often listen to a reading of an extended passage usually without comment allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us and bring Jesus words to us. Or we deal with a passage seeking to hear God’s message individually and together. We pray for one another and often pray for healing with laying on of hands and have been blessed with wonderful answers many times. God bless you.
      I will pray for you and ask God how I may serve you further.


      • Brian Mallalieu

        Thanks once again for your prompt response, and yes Steve includes such details and much more (including the history of his faithful perseverence in the face of much discouragement, and a very helpful chapter on hearing the Spirit!). Because of the centuries of misunderstanding & tradition, and hence lack of awareness of how it could be applied today. I would encourage you to read it, especially if it does nothing else than encourage! By the way, are you on Linked-in as well?


      • Thanks very much Brian. I am not on Linked in. And thanks so much for the emails which I have received and will digest.


  2. Brian Mallalieu

    Any thoughts, Ian, please?


  3. Brian Mallalieu

    Hi Ian, and please excuse this if you have already received my earlier attempted reply.

    Thank you too for your helpful words above (& in associated blog articles on this topic) and I would welcome your responses to the following queries:
    1. Your thoughts about Steve Simms’ inspiring (to me at least!) book ‘Beyond Church’ and their experiences in their Nashville Ekklesia? Have you had similar ones in yours and are they written down anywhere, including how you typically gather and share etc.?
    2. How you think the Nashville & your expressions/experiences exhibit obedience to Jesus’s prophetic words to John Wimber in the 1970s (which I heard him give twice at his 1980 Brighton, UK conference): “Give Me My church back, that I may give it back to the world”?
    With best wishes & blessings to you all for 2018 in Him,
    Brian Mallalieu
    P.S. We seem to share other interests too, as you can see on my Linked-in profile?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you Brian very much for your kind brotherly words and for reading some of my stuff. I am not familiar with Steve Simms’ work in Nashville. His book, ‘Beyond Church’, sounds very biblical and his Facebook page I have just seen is full of encouraging words. Here we connected with Oikos Australia, one of a network of people who serve the Body of Christ encouraging ekklesia–see http://www.oikos.org.au –worth a look. My wife and I have been hosting meetings like Steve describes since the 1970s. Though we are hosts, Jesus is our Head and the Holy Spirit our Teacher and everyone is encouraged to share and exercise spiritual gifts. Our meets have usually been small, and weekly. We encourage looking outwards also and engaging unbelievers with the good news of the Kingdom. Authors who have inspired us include Frank Viola, especially ‘Pagan Christianity’ and ‘Reimaging Church’ and Felicity Dales’ works.
      I am not familiar with John Wimber’s word. I understand Jesus has always said to us ‘Give yourselves back to me and I will send you in my name into the world’. He says ‘Abide in me and my words abide in you . . . you will bear much fruit’. There is no one to give Jesus’ church back to him. His ekkesia is his building, his construction and we are living stones in that building.


  4. Thank you, Ian. Here is a bit more on meaning for now: The specific word, sunagoge [not including variations or forms on the root, such as those I shared earlier], appears about 50 times in the Messianic Writings [Daniel Gruber-Messianic terminology instead of New Testament — also sometimes Apostolic Writings]. Its meaning seems to be weighted a little more towards a meeting place, rather than just a meeting or gathering, but not completely. For example, in Acts 13:43, Luke says that, “When the sunagoge broke up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.” Since Luke does not mention either an earthquake, a riot, or an explosion, we can assume that it was not a building that broke up. It was a meeting. That is what sunagoge means in this verse.

    Since the word today designates something that is specifically Jewish and specifically religious, people today assume that it carried that same designation at the time of Yeshua. We have already seen [on previous pages]
    that it did not carry that meaning in the Greek world. Nor does it carry that meaning in the Messianic Writings. …


    For us today, the phrase “synagogue of the Jews” is redundant. For us today, any synagogue is “of the Jews,” i.e. Jewish. But the Greek phrase which Luke used was not redundant for him or for his readers. The word sunagoge did not denote or imply anything Jewish. It did not even denote or imply anything religious. It just meant “meeting” or “meeting place.” That is why Luke had to identify [Acts 13:5a, Acts 14:1a, Acts 17:1, Acts 17:10] what kind of sunagogai they were going to.

    ~ A Good Church is Hard to Find,


    • Thanks Marleen for the explanation. I appreciate your work and locating the Acts 13:43 passage. The ISBE vol 4 p676, gives the entomology as “syn + ago, to come together, congregate.” Isn’t it fascinating that ‘synagogue’ originally meant ‘meeting’ but became institutionalised by the Jews just as the Grk word ‘ekklesia’ eventually became a place rather than the meeting. And so it is today, regrettably.


  5. Thanks Marlene for your helpful comment. I believe the one instance is to be found in the Letter of James in chapter 2 and verse 2 where the Greek word συναγωγὴν is transliterated straight into English as sunagogue and used for believers gathered together.


    • Thanks, Ian. When I look that up online, I see mostly “assembly” and a bit of “meeting” on that; which version of translation do you mean? The World English Bible (as you mentioned earlier, the WEB)?

      This is helpful for meaning.
      Mt. 13:30
      Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather together/sunagagete the wheat into my barn.'”

      Mt. 13:47
      “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and gathered/sunagagouse all kinds of fish.”


      • My mistake Marleen. In James 2:2 the original Greek is συναγωγὴν and not ekklesia — and of course translated as assembly or meeting, and thanks for the other 2 passages from Matthews gospel.


  6. Correction for clarity: So translators preferred to render “synagogue” if a context gave a negative tone but “church” if the tone was more in line with what the church institution wanted for its reputation.

    I’m trying to remember. I think there is a place where the Greek is synagoge and they went with “church” anyway.

    (I’ll see if I can find the book.
    I got used to finding things he wrote online.
    But the website is down.)


  7. I very much enjoyed reading the above entry; hardly anyone knows this (about the word church being anachronistic), it seems. A man named Daniel or Dan Gruber wrote in-depth about this — with the words ekklesia and synagoge. The word that should be translated as synagogue is used for believers in the Greek scriptures, but not very often. Maybe only once. But tradition did as you say, obscured what was written. So it was preferred to say “synagogue” if something had a negative tone and church if the tone was more in line with the institution.

    I apologize I don’t remember off the top of my head where the example(s) can be found of what I mean in the Bible.


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