When we use the word “church” today, we usually mean one of two things: a building on the corner of a street, or a Sunday morning event we attend. “I am going to church.”
But when Jesus stood in front of His disciples and said, “Upon this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18), what exactly did He mean? He wasn’t talking about a brick-and-mortar building, nor was He talking about an invisible, abstract feeling in our hearts.
To understand what He meant, we have to look at the word He and the Gospel writers used.
A Governing Assembly
The original Greek word used in the New Testament for church is ekklesia.
When you break the word down into its root parts—ek (out of) and kaleo (to call)—it literally translates to “the called-out ones.” But in the ancient Greek-speaking world, this wasn’t just a generic term for a crowd or a social gathering. It referred to a specific, called-out assembly that makes governing judgments.
If we look at classical Greek literature around and before the time of Jesus, the ekklesia was the principal assembly of ancient city-states like Athens.
- In his History of the Peloponnesian War, the historian Thucydides describes the ekklesia gathering to debate, pass binding laws, and render definitive judgments on matters of life, death, and state policy (such as the famous Mytilenaean Debate).
- The philosopher Aristotle, in his work Politics, defines the ekklesia as the deliberative body of the city-state that holds supreme authority over alliances, laws, and the magistrates.
It wasn’t a book club or a weekly lecture; it was a legislative and judicial body with real, binding authority over its citizens.
So, when Jesus stood before His apostles and said He was building His ekklesia, He was doing something profoundly radical. He wasn’t just gathering a loose association of individuals who happened to agree on theology. He was establishing a real, visible, governing assembly for the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
This makes perfect sense of what Jesus says in the very next breath. He tells Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). “Binding and loosing” is ancient Jewish terminology for making authoritative judgments and rendering decisions. Jesus was granting His new ekklesia the authority to actually govern.
A Tale of Two Timelines
Have you ever wondered how the early Christians knew what to believe before the New Testament was finished?
It is easy for us today to view the Bible as a beautiful manual that dropped whole and complete from heaven. We love it, we cherish it, and we read it. But history shows us a different, fascinating reality: the sacred deposit of faith that the Apostles left us wasn’t just Scripture. It was Scripture and the living, breathing Church. In fact, they were being deposited at the exact same time.
Look at the timeline of the first century. The Apostles were planting physical, real-world churches decades before the New Testament was finished:
- Jerusalem (approx. 33 AD): Founded at Pentecost by Peter and the Apostles.
- Antioch (approx. 37–40 AD): The place where believers were first called “Christians.” Peter was its first bishop before heading west.
- Rome (approx. 42–60 AD): The church where both Peter and Paul ministered and were ultimately martyred.
- Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi (approx. 50–55 AD): Vibrant communities founded by Paul on his missionary journeys.
Now, compare that to the timeline of the New Testament being written:
- 50–65 AD: Paul writes his letters to the very churches he already established. (1 Thessalonians, the earliest letter, was written around 50 AD).
- 65–85 AD: The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke are written.
- 90–100 AD: The Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation are completed.
Notice the overlap. For the first twenty to sixty years of Christianity, there was no completed New Testament. The believers in Ephesus couldn’t flip open a Bible to see what Jesus said—the Gospel of John wouldn’t be written for another forty years!
So, how did they survive? How did they know the truth?
They relied on the oral teaching of the Apostles, the breaking of the bread (the Eucharist), and the visible authority of the leaders the Apostles appointed. The Church birthed the New Testament, not the other way around. This is why Saint Paul could write to Timothy and call the Church—not a book—the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).
Echoes of the First Christians
If this visible, authoritative, sacramental Church was real, we should be able to hear its echoes in history. And we do.
If we look at the writings of the Early Church Fathers—the men who were the direct disciples of the Apostles, writing before the year 150 AD—we don’t find a disconnected group of independent believers. We find a highly structured, fiercely unified Church that centered its entire life around the Holy Mass and the bishop.
Saint Clement of Rome (approx. 96 AD) Clement was the fourth bishop of Rome, and tradition holds he was ordained by Peter himself. In a letter to the Corinthians, written while the Apostle John was still alive, Clement explicitly describes how the Apostles set up a succession plan:
“Our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned, and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.”
Saint Ignatius of Antioch (approx. 110 AD) Ignatius was a disciple of the Apostle John. As he was being marched to Rome to be eaten by lions, he wrote letters to several churches. In them, he insists on the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and he is the first person in recorded history to use a very specific title for the Church:
“Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
Saint Justin Martyr (approx. 150 AD) Writing an explanation of Christian worship to the Roman Emperor, Justin describes what the early Christians did on Sundays. It looks remarkably like the Catholic Mass today: readings from the apostles, a homily, prayers, and the Eucharist.
“For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but… we have been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”
Receiving the Full Deposit
When we look back at the Greek meaning of ekklesia, the timeline of the first century, and the voices of those who knew the Apostles, it gently invites us to ask a profound question.
Did Jesus leave us a manual, or did He leave us a family?
The early Christians didn’t have to choose between the Bible and the Church; to them, it was one single, sacred deposit of faith. The Scriptures were the Church’s book, read within the Church’s liturgy, safeguarded by the Church’s appointed shepherds.
Perhaps the invitation for us today is to embrace that same fullness. To not just read the words of the Apostles, but to participate in the living, breathing, sacramental assembly they left behind.