Bible word study

Ekklesia (Strong’s G1577): Meaning in the Bible

Ekklesia (ἐκκλησία) is the Greek word numbered G1577 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as a calling out, i.e. (concretely) a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation (Jewish synagogue, or Christian community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both). In the King James Bible it is translated assembly, church..

• Original wordἐκκλησία
• Transliterationekklēsía
• Pronunciationek-klay-see'-ah
• Strong’s numberG1577
• LanguageGreek

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from a compound of G1537 and a derivative of G2564;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Ekklesia appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Ekklesia (G1577) stands behind 120 English renderings in 112 verses across 17 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Acts (24), Revelation (24), 1 Corinthians (22).

How the King James Bible renders Ekklesia, by count

• church67 of 120 (56 percent)
• churches27 of 120 (22 percent)
• of the church7 of 120 (6 percent)
• unto the churches7 of 120 (6 percent)
• assembly3 of 120 (2 percent)
• the3 of 120 (2 percent)

Three places to read Ekklesia

• Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
• 1 Corinthians 11:18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.
• Philippians 4:15 Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

And Christ

The word means an assembly called out and gathered. Christians believe it is not a club you join but a people Christ gathers to himself, his own body in the world.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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