The Berean Codex™Scripture Research Project
Research library · Reception history · Dependency analysis

ἐκκλησία — Matthew 16:18 community belonging to Jesus

A reusable research record with provenance and relationships kept separate from the presentation layer.

SEMANTIC_USAGE_OCCURRENCEUSAGE_G1577_MAT_16_18

Competing interpretations

Interpreters differ over the precise institutional or eschatological scope of “my ἐκκλησία”; this record classifies the immediate contextual domain, not a full ecclesiological doctrine.
Curation State
CURATED
Release Introduced
v44
Language
Greek
Lemma
ἐκκλησία
Strong Id
G1577
Lemma Keys
[
    "ἐκκλησία",
    "G1577"
]
Evidence Layers
[
    {
        "id": "BIBLICAL_HEBREW_GREEK",
        "role": "textual_corpus"
    }
]
Source Ids
[
    "SRC_SBLGNT",
    "SRC_KJV1769"
]
Source Reference
Matthew 16:18
Date Range
{
    "label": "1st century CE composition context",
    "certainty": "broad"
}
Original Language
Greek
Attested Form
ἐκκλησίαν
Original Excerpt
μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν
Translation
{
    "text": "my church / my assembly",
    "responsibility": "Berean Archive contextual gloss",
    "alignment_note": "The slash preserves the familiar English rendering and the underlying assembly/community sense without forcing a single gloss."
}
Semantic Domains
[
    {
        "id": "religious_cultic",
        "role": "primary",
        "classification": "strong evidence",
        "rationale": "The assembly/community is defined by relation to Jesus and appears in an explicitly theological pronouncement."
    },
    {
        "id": "social_kinship",
        "role": "secondary",
        "classification": "reasonable inference",
        "rationale": "The referent is a corporate community, not merely a meeting event."
    }
]
Evidence Strength
STRONG_CONTEXTUAL_CLASSIFICATION
Context Summary
Jesus speaks of building “my ἐκκλησία.” The context is theological and communal, unlike the lawful civic assembly in Acts 19:39.
Evidence Boundary
Historical civic uses of ἐκκλησία are relevant background but do not by themselves decide the theological referent in Matthew 16:18.
Scripture Reference
{
    "book": "MAT",
    "chapter": 16,
    "verse": "18",
    "edition": "sblgnt"
}