William Tyndale had a profound impact on English Bible translation. His translation of the New Testament—the first English translation to be based on the original Greek rather than the Latin Vulgate—formed the basis for all English translations of the Reformation period, up to the King James Version of 1611. Tyndale also translated many books of the Old Testament from the Hebrew before he was martyred in 1536.

Tyndale had a fervent desire for the people of England to be able to read God’s Word for themselves in their own language. Within four years after his death at the stake—upon which he cried, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”—several full English Bible translations were printed with the approval of the King. By all measures, Tyndale’s life was an immensely fruitful one for God’s kingdom.

But sadly, one goal that Tyndale fought and died for remains unfulfilled to this day. Tyndale believed that the Greek word ekklesia, traditionally translated “church,” should instead be translated by a more general word, fitting its more general meaning and use in the New Testament. In his day, he chose “congregation” for this purpose. This was vehemently attacked by Catholic authorities such as Sir Thomas More, but Tyndale defended his translation of ekklesia as “congregation” rather than “church” based on how the actual Greek word functions in the New Testament:

Now ecclesia is a Greek word, and was in use before the time of the apostles, and [was understood as] a congregation among the heathen, where [there] was no congregation of God or of Christ. And also Luke himself useth ecclesia for a church, or congregation, of heathen people thrice in one chapter, even in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, where Demetrius the goldsmith, or silversmith, had gathered a company against Paul for preaching against images.¹William Tyndale, An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, first published in 1530. Parker Society edition, ed. Henry Walter, 1850. Online: https://books.google.com/books/download/An_Answer_to_Sir_Thomas_More_s_Dialogue.pdf?id=TOLOU6-00yUC&output=pdf (Slightly modernized English.)

Tyndale didn’t think “church” was a “bad word” in general—far from it! He happily used it himself in his writing and speech. But Tyndale believed that when translating the Bible, the word “church” was a distortion of the meaning of the God-breathed word ekklesia, which could apply to pagan mobs (as he refers to in Acts 19) as well as “congregations” who come together to worship God through Christ in Spirit and in truth. In Tyndale’s day, the word “church” was typically used to refer to the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, whereas Tyndale saw the ekklesia of Christ as including all believers.

In the early 1600s, King James authorized an official Bible translation that would be used by both Anglicans and Puritans, and would limit the influence of the Puritan “Geneva Bible.” One of the specific stipulations for the translation was that ekklesia be translated “church” and not as “congregation.”²Quote of original manuscripts found in David Norton, A Textual History of the King James Bible, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 7. The translators duly followed this order.

Today, we have no kings telling us how we must translate. Yet nearly every single modern English translation still translates ekklesia as “church” in almost all cases.³Although the King James Version successfully blocked Tyndale’s desires for the translation of ekklesia in English, Martin Luther’s earlier translation into German translates both ekklesia and qahal (a Hebrew word often translated as ekklesia in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament) as Gemeinde, meaning “congregation” or “community.” Luther’s influence remains on modern German translations, which rarely if ever use the word Kirche (“church”) to translate ekklesia. English might have followed German’s example, if not for the decree of a 17th-century monarch favoring the bishops over the Puritans. Was Tyndale right—and if so, what does that mean for us today?

An ekklesia is not a “church”

What does “church” mean in English? Most non-Christians (and even many Christians) would think of it mainly as a building where Christians go to worship God. Many of us know that the “real” meaning of “church” is the people—those who belong to the gathering of believers, either locally (as when Paul writes, for example, “to the church of God which is in Corinth,” 1 Corinthians 1:2) or globally.

The meaning of “church” as in “the body of believers in Christ” in English is getting close, but it’s still missing a few key aspects of meaning that would have been present to the original readers of the New Testament. First, the word “church” today can only apply to Christian groups gathering together. Jews have “synagogues,” Muslims have “mosques,” and Christians have “churches.” But as Tyndale noted, the word ekklesia in the New Testament, while it does often apply to Christian groups, is also used of a rioting crowd in Ephesus. The idolatrous mob chanting “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” is referred to as an ekklesia three times in Acts 19. Tellingly, no translators use the word “church” in these three instances—instead, “assembly” is used here in nearly all modern English translations.

In addition, the word ekklesia is used in the New Testament to translate the Hebrew word qahal, meaning “assembly.” For example, Hebrews 2:12 uses ekklesia when quoting Psalm 22:22, which says, “In the midst of the assembly I will praise you.” The term qahal, like ekklesia, usually refers to the assembling together of the people of God in worship, but it can also refer to pagan groups assembled together (e.g. Ezekiel 16:40, Jeremiah 50:9). In other words, the word itself is not inherently about coming together to worship the true God, but instead can refer to any kind of assembling or gathering of people. We see the same pattern of qahal being translated as ekklesia in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. Therefore, many readers of the New Testament would have grown accustomed to seeing the word ekklesia in their Bibles as referring to the assembly of Israel or other gatherings of people.⁴Theologian Paul Trebilco writes that ekklesia “is a general word which does not refer to a particular type of assembly and so is not a technical term; the type or form of ‘assembly’ must be defined by the addition of further words, or by the context” (“Why Did the Early Christians call themselves ἡ ἐκκλησία?”, New Testament Studies 57 (2011), 448).

Why This Matters

Let’s face it—given how the word “church” is used today, a group of ancient Israelites is not a “church.” Neither is a mob of rioting Ephesian pagans! Yet the God-breathed text of the Bible talks about Moses being in the “ekklesia in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38), and of the city clerk of Ephesus dismissing the “ekklesia” that had assembled to chant praise to the goddess Artemis and protest Paul’s preaching. When we use a term like “church” that in modern English can only refer to groups of Christians, we narrow the meaning of the term in ways that may be misleading at times.

Tyndale’s main concern in translating ekklesia was accuracy. If today, we refer to the gathering of believers as an “assembly” for example, there is nothing lost other than the connotation of referring exclusively to Christian groups—which, again, was not present in the term chosen by the New Testament authors anyway. This should be reason enough for us to want to translate ekklesia with a more general word such as “assembly” (or, if one prefers, “congregation,” as Tyndale used, although the connotation of that word has shifted enough by now that its use in Acts 19 for rioting pagan mobs might be a little awkward).

Tyndale was also concerned about the way that readers would understand “church” to refer to the Church hierarchy, rather than to all believers. Some modern readers may have a similar misunderstanding, although the misunderstanding that “church” refers to a building may be more common today.

But there is another reason to desire a more accurate translation of ekklesia. When we translate ekklesia as “church,” we miss the connection between the “assembly” of the New Testament and the “assembly” of the Old Testament. Because the word “church” in modern English is restricted to specifically Christian congregations, it would be anachronistic today to describe Moses being in the “church in the wilderness.” This is why modern translations translate qahal as “assembly” instead of “church” in the Old Testament, and also use “assembly” when the New Testament refers back to the ekklesia in Moses and David’s time. Yet they keep the word “church” nearly everywhere else in the New Testament.

The New Testament, though, describes God’s people assembled together with the exact same word, ekklesia, both in the times of Moses and David as well as the time of Jesus and Paul.⁵There are, of course, both similarities and differences between the ekklesia of the Old Testament and that of the New Testament. One does not need to take a position on exactly how the old and new covenants compare to see the simple linguistic fact that the biblical authors used the same term for the assemblies of God’s people under both. A translation that preserves this sameness of terms does not prejudge the exact relationship and nature of those similarities and differences, but simply follows the inspired lead of the biblical authors in their choice to use the same term for God’s people under both covenants.Using the word “church” for Jesus’ and Paul’s time, but “assembly” for earlier times, cuts off the ekklesia of Christ from the ekklesia of Israel, whereas the biblical text ties them together by using the same word for both.⁶Trebilco concurs, writing, “The use of ἡ ἐκκλησία, a term used in the LXX of ‘the assembly’ of Israel as we will see, clearly expresses the [Greek-speaking Jewish Christians’] theological conviction that their group was in continuity with that assembly of Yahweh” (Trebilco, 444). This needlessly and inaccurately severs the New Testament from its roots among the people of Israel. In contrast, when our translation of key terms more closely matches the way that biblical authors actually use the terms, the nuanced meaning of these terms in different contexts will become clear to readers as they read Scripture.

Consider a passage like Ephesians 3:8-10:

To me, though I am the very least of all the holy people, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the ekklesia, the manifold wisdom of God would now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Translating ekklesia here as “church” makes it sound as if God is revealing His wisdom through something completely new and different from the people of God in the past. Certainly there is a new dimension revealed, but what is new is not the ekklesia itself—according to the New Testament authors, that already existed at the time of Moses and David. Rather, it is that the Gentiles are now included with the Jews in God’s ekklesia through Christ. If, instead, we take our lead from the apostles and translate ekklesia with the same term as we use to translate qahal, this enables us to see clearly that we are not dealing with an Old Testament “assembly” in contrast to a New Testament “church,” but instead a gracious and glorious inclusion of the Gentiles into the assembly of the Lord. In response, we can join in the praises of God’s people throughout history:

And [Solomon] stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying: “Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel according to all that He promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises He made through His servant Moses.” (1 Kings 8:55-56)

I will proclaim Your name to my brothers;
I will praise You in the assembly.
You who fear the Lord, praise Him!
All descendants of Jacob, honor Him!
All offspring of Israel, revere Him!…

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord.
All the families of the nations
will bow down before Him…

They will come and proclaim His righteousness
to a people yet unborn,
For he has done it! (Psalm 22:22-23, 27, 31)

To him be glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen! (Ephesians 3:21)

• 1
  William Tyndale, An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, first published in 1530. Parker Society edition, ed. Henry Walter, 1850. Online: https://books.google.com/books/download/An_Answer_to_Sir_Thomas_More_s_Dialogue.pdf?id=TOLOU6-00yUC&output=pdf (Slightly modernized English.)
• 2
  Quote of original manuscripts found in David Norton, A Textual History of the King James Bible, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 7.
• 3
  Although the King James Version successfully blocked Tyndale’s desires for the translation of ekklesia in English, Martin Luther’s earlier translation into German translates both ekklesia and qahal (a Hebrew word often translated as ekklesia in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament) as Gemeinde, meaning “congregation” or “community.” Luther’s influence remains on modern German translations, which rarely if ever use the word Kirche (“church”) to translate ekklesia. English might have followed German’s example, if not for the decree of a 17th-century monarch favoring the bishops over the Puritans.
• 4
  Theologian Paul Trebilco writes that ekklesia “is a general word which does not refer to a particular type of assembly and so is not a technical term; the type or form of ‘assembly’ must be defined by the addition of further words, or by the context” (“Why Did the Early Christians call themselves ἡ ἐκκλησία?”, New Testament Studies 57 (2011), 448).
• 5
  There are, of course, both similarities and differences between the ekklesia of the Old Testament and that of the New Testament. One does not need to take a position on exactly how the old and new covenants compare to see the simple linguistic fact that the biblical authors used the same term for the assemblies of God’s people under both. A translation that preserves this sameness of terms does not prejudge the exact relationship and nature of those similarities and differences, but simply follows the inspired lead of the biblical authors in their choice to use the same term for God’s people under both covenants.
• 6
  Trebilco concurs, writing, “The use of ἡ ἐκκλησία, a term used in the LXX of ‘the assembly’ of Israel as we will see, clearly expresses the [Greek-speaking Jewish Christians’] theological conviction that their group was in continuity with that assembly of Yahweh” (Trebilco, 444).