ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΑ, ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ, and Genuine Relationship

One of our pastors this morning described κοινωνία as "biblical community." I thought for a while this afternoon. "Community" is a pretty ambiguous word. I think for a lot of people it often means that people know my name, people with whom I feel comfortable, informal conversation, social belonging, a small group where I feel understood. If we're not careful though, we might miss that the earliest Christian community was defined by much more. 

Paul speaks of κοινωνία in Christ (1 Cor. 1:9), in Christ’s body and blood (1 Cor. 10:16), in the gospel (Phil. 1:5), in Christ’s sufferings (Phil. 3:10), and in material contributions for believers in need (Rom. 15:26; 2 Cor. 8:4; 9:13). Christians do not first achieve fellowship by liking one another. Their relationship with one another arises from what they have already been given together in Christ.

When three thousand people were added to the number of disciples of Jesus in Acts 2, what happened to them? Some stayed in Jerusalem or its environs. But since it was Pentecost, we can bet a number of them returned to their homes, some far away. When we think about what Luke describes as believers met house to house, it has to be more than emotional closeness or familiarity. Their relationships would grow and develop over time. But Luke is more likely describing a people whose common allegiance to Jesus created real obligations to one another and new experiences made possible by the New Covenant. "Genuine relationship" is the way my doctoral advisor at Southeastern translated it. They experienced "genuine relationship." I think that's better than "biblical community." A lexical option can only get us so far. We need more than the lexeme and more than the sentence. We need the thought unit. “Genuine relationship” captures something important that “biblical community” can obscure. Yet neither expression exhausts κοινωνία. Luke must show us what this shared participation looks like.

Ἐκκλησία identifies the people who have been gathered. Κοινωνία describes the shared participation that characterizes their life together. The church is not merely a gathering of people who enjoy one another. It is a people gathered by God whose participation in Christ transforms how they worship, eat, give, pray, and respond to one another’s needs.

In Acts 2:42, they devote themselves τῇ κοινωνίᾳ. Luke then begins to show what that κοινωνία looked like:

In Acts 2:42, the believers continually devote themselves (ἦσαν προσκαρτεροῦντες) to four things:

1. The teaching (singular, not plural) of the apostles (plural, not singular)
   τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων
2. Genuine relationship
   τῇ κοινωνίᾳ
3. Breaking of bread (life together, but also a shared emphasis on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the sins of the world)
   τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου
4. Prayers (an expression of their genuine, shared relationship with God) 
   ταῖς προσευχαῖς

And if you move further in the text, you see some additional descriptions. Notice especially 2:45: "and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need." These verses really don't describe compulsory communal ownership. They describe something more radical––believers willing to look for the needs around them, identifying them, and then meeting them. They do not assume that noticing a need, reporting it to someone else, or even praying about it exhausts their responsibility. Prayer forms them into people who are ready to respond. They look at what God has entrusted to them––time, energy, and resources––and they ask whether it can meet the need before them.

Becky Lynn Black told me she used to ask herself two simple questions: “Is there a need? Can I meet it?” And then she would speak to the Lord and follow his lead. She used to describe herself to me as a "glove on his hand." So true, isn't it? Those questions do not exhaust κοινωνία, but they reveal in part whether our fellowship is genuine. Κοινωνία is way more than meeting needs. A community living with the shared purpose and mind that Jesus intends is one whose participants look for needs and meet them. They look at the time, energy, and resources that God has entrusted to them and ask if any of that will meet the need they see.