What is an assembly?

…where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20)

On the first day of the week…we were gathered together to break bread… (Acts 20:7)

…to the church [assembly] of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours… (I Corinthians 1:2)

By "assembly" we simply mean a gathering, congregation, or group of Christians. Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ come together for Bible teaching, for fellowship, for worship and remembrance, and for prayer (Acts 2:42). A group that convenes for any of these purposes is an assembly, in the biblical sense of the word.

We can use the word "assembly" instead of "church" to avoid confusing the people of Christ with the place where they meet. Strictly speaking, the church is people, not a building or a place of worship. When we speak of an assembly, we're referring to a church, a group of the Lord's people.

Greek is the original language of the New Testament. Our English word "church" or "assembly" is translated from the Greek word ekklēsia. Generically, ekklēsia can refer to any gathering of people. But the authors of the Bible almost always use ekklēsia in a narrower sense, to refer to the called-out people of God: the assembly, the church.

Our modern English word "church" has its origins in Old English. Around 750 A.D., cirice referred either to a "public place of worship", or to "Christians collectively". Cirice is believed to have come from a Greek phrase meaning "the Lord's house". Over time, probably before 1200, cirice became Middle English chirche. "The phonetic spelling church for Middle English chirche began to appear at the end of the 1200's, and became established in the 1500's." [Barnhart]

So we see that in the English New Testament "church" always refers to a gathering of Christians. By contrast, in common use outside of the scriptures, the English word "church" has often, from its earliest days, conveyed the idea of a house of worship. We must not read that idea into the biblical text. The authors of the New Testament were referring to Christ's people. Using the word "assembly" helps us to avoid this confusion, since in everyday English "assembly" never refers to a place, but to a congregation or gathering of people.

[Acts 2:42] "And they [the first Christians] devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

[Barnhart] The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, by Robert K. Barnhart (HarperCollins, 1995). See under "church" on page 125.