SHARING A COMMON LIFE

What we have seen and heard we declare to you, so that you and we together may share in a common life, that life which we share with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.

1 John 1:3, neb

The word community is used for a variety of purposes to denote groups of people who have something in common. For example, we may speak of a farming community or of the academic community at a university or of an ethnic group, such as the Italian community in a large city.

In recent years, many Christian leaders and pastors have begun to emphasize the importance of community among believers. This is a much-needed corrective to our tendency toward an individualistic approach to the Christian life, but it does raise the question What is biblical community? And is there a biblical basis for using the word community in our Christian context?

To answer that question, we need to explore the meaning of the Greek word koinonia and its most common English translation, the word fellowship. Koinonia, in its different grammatical forms, is actually translated several ways in the New Testament: for example, participation, partnership, sharing, and of course fellowship. In our Christian circles, the word fellowship has come to mean little more than Christian social activity. It may mean the exchange of pleasantries over coffee and cookies at church, or the social functions of our high school or campus ministry groups. This is not the meaning of fellowship in the New Testament.

The first occurrence of the word fellowship in the New Testament occurs in Luke's account of the beginning of the New Testament church on the Day of Pentecost. As a result of Peter's sermon, about three thousand people believed in Christ. Luke says of them that "they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42).

We're not surprised that these new believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to prayer. But to fellowship? It would seem strange to include fellowship along with teaching and prayer if fellowship meant no more than Christian social activity. Or consider the words of the apostle John in 1 John 1:3: "What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" (nasb). In both Acts 2:42 and 1 John 1:3, the New English Bible translates koinonia as "sharing a common life." This is the most basic meaning of koinonia, or fellowship. It is sharing a common life with other believers — a life that, as John says, we share with God the Father and God the Son. It is a relationship, not an activity.

RELATIONSHIP

Those first Christians of Acts 2 were not devoting themselves to social activities but to a relationship — a relationship that consisted of sharing together the very life of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They understood that they had entered this relationship by faith in Jesus Christ, not by joining an organization. And they realized that their fellowship with God logically brought them into fellowship with one another. Through their union with Christ, they were formed into a spiritually organic community. They were living stones being built into a spiritual house (see 1 Peter 2:5), fellow members of the body of Christ. As William Hendriksen said, "Koinonia, then, is basically a community-relationship." It is not primarily an activity; it is a relationship.

It is this spiritually organic relationship that forms the basis of true Christian community. It is not the fact that we are united in common goals or purposes that makes us a community. Rather, it is the fact that we share a common life in Christ. There are many organizations, both secular and Christian, whose members work together to pursue common goals. Some of these groups may call themselves communities. But biblical community goes much deeper than sharing common goals, though it ultimately involves that. Biblical community is first of all the sharing of a common life in Christ. It is when we grasp this truth that we are in a position to begin to understand true community.

PARTNERSHIP

Koinonia also means sharing together in the sense of partnership. Both classical Greek writers and New Testament writers used koinonia to refer to a business partnership. Plato spoke of the dissolution of a koinonia — a business partnership. Luke used a form of koinonia to refer to the partnership of Peter with James and John in the fishing business (see Luke 5:10).

In the spiritual realm, Paul regarded himself as a partner with his dear friend Philemon, and he thanked God for the Philippian believers' partnership in the gospel (see Philemon 1:17; Philippians 1:5). And when Paul went to Jerusalem to dispute with the legalists over the necessity of circumcision, he said, "James, Cephas, and John, accepted Barnabas and myself as partners" (Galatians 2:9, neb). The concept of fellowship as a spiritual partnership is firmly embedded in the New Testament use of koinonia.

Whereas relationship describes believers as a community, partnership describes them as a community in action. A business partnership is always formed in order to attain an objective, such as providing a service to the public at a profit for the partners. In the same way, the concept of a spiritual partnership implies that it is created with the objective of glorifying God. Just as all believers are united together in a community relationship, so we are all united together in a partnership formed to glorify God. God is glorified when Christians grow in Christlikeness and when unbelievers are brought into His Kingdom. Biblical community, then, incorporates this idea of an active partnership in the promotion of the gospel and the building up of believers.

COMMUNION WITH OTHERS

A second primary meaning of New Testament koinonia is sharing with others what we have. Just as sharing together has two sub-meanings (relationship and partnership), so sharing with has two sub-meanings. The...