Matthew 16:18
And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter: and upon this rock I will build my congregation.
And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church.
One of the fighting words in early Reformation Bible translation was the Greek ekklesia, translated in the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate as ecclesia, and in the King James Bible and other officially sanctioned English Bibles as “church.” By using the word “congregation,” the earlier translator William Tyndale is making a Protestant argument against the hierarchical, institutional structure of contemporary English (and continental Roman Catholic) Christianity. The King James Bible translators were simply instructed to translate ekklesia as “church.”