Koinonia

Koinonia is a Greek term used many times throughout the New Testament to represent the relationship within the early church. The first time it is used is in Acts 2:42-47 when describing the early church in Jerusalem:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need…They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.”

It’s amazing that the term, “the fellowship,” was a description of its central character as one of sharing in a common life.  As I try to imagine what ’koinonia’ would look like in our culture today, I never can quite get my mind around it.  Does God really call us as a church to experience this type of fellowship - sharing in our lives, our money, our possessions?  Something within me rises up and says “No, he wouldn’t really call us to that“ or I think “that was just their culture, it doesn’t apply to us today”.  But why?  Why wouldn’t God call us as a church to that?

I try to ask myself, which is more likely:  1) That God would call his church to come together to meet in a building a few times a month to worship and give a lot of superficial hellos and how are ya’s, then leave to go live the rest of life independently, or  2) God would call us to replicate the example of the church He gave in His Word, where we experience fellowship, sharing in life, money, possessions, experiences, etc., and through this fellowship the kingdom is spread.

I’m coming to the conclusion that we have chosen the way we want the church to interact because it fits into our lifestyle and culture.  The second option, let’s be honest…. it requires a lot.  It requires a total surrender of the life that we believe we are entitled to or deserve.  Something has taught us that we deserve something in this life.  We’ve somehow forgetten that the one and only thing we deserve is death, eternally……end of story.   We’ve stopped listening to God and started listening to our culture.  We’ve began looking at the Word of God through our American glasses.  Anyways, I truly believe that the world will not see change until the church takes off its glasses and opens its eyes to the fact that God has called us to koinonia.  We forget the fact that by pursuing our own selfish desires, we’re the ones ultimately missing out –  we’re missing out on experiencing the life of fellowship that God has designed us for.