What is Fellowship?

In Acts 2:42 says that the early church as continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  In this single verse we know the recipe for growing together in Christ. The word that people tend to misunderstand is the word fellowship.

Fellowship is the word koinonia and it literally means partnership or sharing. Someone in fellowship has a duty to stimulate or build up his partner. It has a uniquely spiritual context in its usage in the scriptures. An end goal of any fellowship in this biblical model is drawing nearer to them and to Christ. I say this because fellowship can be used almost entirely socially. It is not that socializing is bad, but fellowship goes well beyond socializing.

Last night, we were with a gathering of believers at our good friends home. It was their annual "Happy Birthday Jesus" party and that was a great example of fellowship. It is a time of seeing old friends, sharing our lives, and singing praises to God. You don't come away from that time without a sense of feeling renewed spiritually. Deb and I are so blessed to have friends that we have shared life with and have borne each others burdens with. But those friends are not just friends - they stimulate us to closer relationship with God.

 
Isn't it amazing that God did not choose for us to walk through life on an island? He puts people in our path that we are to live life together. I have to admit that over the course of my thirties and even into my forties that I did not appreciate those relationships as I do now in my fifties. We desperately need those bonds to grow in relationship with the Lord.