Does “Church” Mean “Called Out”?

In the New Testament, the Greek word commonly rendered “church” in English translations is ekklēsia, which is a compound word made up of two parts:

1. The prefix ek, meaning “out of”, and
2. a form from the verb kaleō, meaning “to call”.

Based on this, it is popularly thought that the Church was called ekklēsia because it is made up of people who have been “called out of” the world.

However, this commits the root fallacy: falsely assuming that the meaning of a compound word is necessarily derived from the meaning of its component parts. This is like assuming that the English word butterfly means “flying butter”, or that the English verb to understand means “to stand under something”.

During the time of Jesus and the first Christians, ekklēsia was a common Greek word meaning “assembly”, and it had been used that way in secular contexts long before Jesus was even born. This secular use of ekklēsia can even be found in the New Testament:

Acts 19:32, 39, 41 ESV Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly [ekklēsia] was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. ... But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly [ekklēsia]. ... And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly [ekklēsia].

Notice how the Greek word ekklēsia is used to refer to the gathering of non-Christian people. Were these people somehow “called out of” the world? Of course not.

Therefore, it is not as if Jesus or the first Christians invented the word ekklēsia as a special theological term for the Church because it somehow meant “called out”. Rather, they were simply using a common word from the common language of the day which simply meant “assembly”.