The Fellowship of Jesus Christ
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Loading ...Posted September 6th, 2008 | 5 views | Print | Email
Is Christian fellowship something that happens only once a week when you go to church? Does a person have to belong to a certain group within a church in order to experience it? What does it really mean to be a part of the fellowship of Jesus Christ?
The word, ‘fellowship’, in Greek is, ‘koinonia’. It essentially means, ‘partnership’. But it’s not the kind of partnership that has to do with business or contracts. Its roots run deeper than that. But before we proceed to dig deeper into this word, I would like to show you one of the definitions that dictionary.com has for ‘partnership’, which was actually taken from Wordnet. In it, partnership is defined as, “a cooperative relationship between people or groups who agree to share responsibility for achieving some specific goal.” I like this definition, because it is rich in meaning, and very closely resembles the idea that the Bible conveys on the subject.
You see, in the Bible, the Apostle John had said, “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another…” (1 John 1:5-7 NKJV)
In other words, what John is telling us here is that as believers we shouldn’t just know the truth; we should uphold it. Thus, by doing what we know to be true to God, we will contribute something of ourselves to the purpose of encouraging and maintaining a ‘cooperative relationship’ with Jesus Christ to edify and build up the Church.
You see, the objective of Jesus Christ for the Church isn’t merely about adding new members to the church roll. Jesus wants to encourage us to get involved in a cooperative effort to so compliment the functionality of the body as a whole that it will accurately reflect the Character of God, as each member does their part to exercise the gifts that God has given them to build each other up in Christ’s love.
In fact, this can be seen very clearly in the example of Paul’s response to the church of God at Corinth (1Cor. 1:2). There were a lot of social problems within this church. The people were divided and could not come to an agreement on what it meant to be a Christian (1Cor. 1:11-12). Thus, they argued with and belittled each other incessantly, as they sought to prove which leader among them was the best example of a person who had the truth as it is in Jesus Christ; yet, in all of this they were merely demonstrating that they didn’t know The Christ!
As a result of this the pen of Inspiration was lifted up by Paul, who had said to them, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1 Corinthians 1:10 NKJV)
What Paul was essentially saying to the Corinthians was that because they were divided against each other, they were not united in Jesus Christ. Therefore, they were not where God wanted them to be, but were actually working in cooperation with the enemy whose purpose was to divide and conquer them.
Moreover, Paul told them that if they wanted to avoid being overthrown by the enemy, they would have to stop contending with each other, and start working together to achieve the goal of Jesus Christ for the Church, that they would have to be of the same mind and the same judgment. In other words, Paul is saying, if you are going to make the claim that you belong to Jesus Christ, then you better start living like Jesus Christ. You better obey His commandments. And one such commandments that Jesus has given is as follows: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35 NKJV) Without a doubt, the Corinthians were not obeying this commandment!
But this raises another question…
What does it mean to love? In other words, how can we know that we are showing love for God and each other?
It is written, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:1-3 NKJV)
The commandments that are spoken of here are obviously referring to God’s Moral Law - the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20: 1-17). By keeping the Commandments of God we will not only show that we love each other, we will disclose that we love God! In other words, if we really belong to Jesus Christ, we will show it by keeping God’s Commandments. Thus, we won’t provoke a divisive spirit within the church; rather, we will work together in cooperation with Jesus Christ to uphold and live by the Truth that He died to preserve; and we will thereby demonstrate to the world that Christianity is not a religion of tension and animosity; rather, it’s the voice of God’s love and the fellowship of Jesus Christ!
About the author: Chris Esty is a Christian writer who has a passion to share Jesus Christ. He also has a website called, The Bible Post.com, where he encourages spiritual growth in Jesus through Bible devotions, Bible Memorization, Bible study, and information on Communicating with God.
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Tags:
Bible, Christian fellowship, Commandments, Fellowship, Jesus Christ, koinonia, NKJV, partnership
