Synonym for: Assembly, Church.

See Definition for \sunagwgh\ 4864 See Definition for \ekklhsia\ 1577 See Definition for \panhguriv\ 3831

According to their derivation, \sunagwgh\ is simply an assembly, a mass of people gathered together;

\ekklhsia\ is a narrower word, also an assembly, but including only those specially called together out of a larger multitude, for the transaction of business. \ekklhsia\ usually denotes a somewhat more select company than \sunagwgh\. A significant use of \ekklhsia\ in strict harmony with its derivation was common among the Greeks. It was their common word for the lawful assembly in a free Greek city of all those possessing the rights of citizenship, for the transaction of public affairs. They were summoned out of the whole population, ``a select portion of it, including neither the populace, nor strangers, nor yet those who had forfeited their civic rights'' (Trench). \sunagwgh\ had been, before N.T. times, appropriated to designate a synagogue, a Jewish assembly for worship, distinct from the Temple, in which sense it is used in the N.T. Probably for that reason, and also for its greater inherent etymological fitness, \ekklhsia\ is the word taken to designate a Christian church, a company of believers who meet for worship. Both these words, however, are sometimes used in the N.T. in a non-technical sense.

\panhguriv\, occurring only in Heb 12:23, differs from both, denoting a solemn assembly for festal rejoicing.