Ask the pastor: what was 'church' in Matthew 16?

• What did 'church' mean when Jesus said 'on this rock I will build my church' in Matthew 16?

Boova brings the week's ask-the-pastor question from Matthew 16: 'on this rock I will build my church' — what could 'church' (ecclesia) have meant to Peter when the word appears for the first time and the Old Testament had no such concept? One host answers from context: Jesus had been preaching the kingdom, and they were standing amid temples to Pan, so the kingdom was coming to blow all of that up. Ben adds that Israel needed no word for it as a nation, but Jesus was naming a distinct new community bound by Peter's confession, the fundamental split with Judaism.