Apr
4
Together for What?
Posted by Champ Thornton at 9:03 amFiled Under church, ethics, theology
It’s easy for most people to equate “fellowship” with friendship. When we have coffee, doughnuts, and conversation with fellow Christians, we say we have enjoyed their “fellowship.” When we have coffee, doughnuts, and conversation with a non-Christian, we say we have enjoyed their “friendship.” So, is fellowship “Christian socializing?” Or more to the point of this week’s blog series, “What unites us with other believers at church?”
The Bible’s word for “fellowship” is identical to the word “partnership” (Philippians 1:5). If two people were to start a business together, they would enter into a partnership. There would be a greater reality (i.e., the business) which would bind them to each other. Within that reality, certain activities and attitudes would almost certainly take place (i.e., communication, honesty, sacrifice, etc.). With this in mind, partnership has been defined as “self-sacrificing conformity to a shared vision” (from Carson’s “Basics for Believers“). How does the Bible describe this “partnership”?
First, the biblical concept of fellowship carries a somewhat passive sense—it’s not something they themselves do. This sense can be commonly designated as “having a share.” For example, believers are made partners in the life Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:9) and of the Holy Spirit (Philippians 2:1). Believers are also mutual partners in the work of Christ in the Gospel. They partner together in its blessing (1 Corinthians 9:23), its proclamation (Philippians 4:14), the suffering that goes along with it (Philippians 3:10), and its remembrance (1 Corinthians 10:16).
Secondly, fellowship in the Bible also carries an active sense of “giving a share.” Because of the partnership (or shared vision) that exists between believers and Christ, Christians should demonstrate their partnership with Christ by doing something—by sharing with other members of His body in concrete ways. For example, Paul identifies the financial help he had received (Philippians 4:14, 15) and the money given by believers to other believers (Romans 15:26) as fellowship!
Consequently, “fellowship” is much more than warm societal interaction. At least in Scripture, “fellowship” expresses itself in more sacrificial (e.g., giving, suffering, etc.) than merely enjoyable ways (e.g., golf, potlucks, etc.). So, when Acts 2:42 says that the early church believers “were continually devoting themselves . . . to fellowship,” it means that instead of merely enjoying each other’s company, these men and women were also giving of themselves to help their partners in the Gospel.
So, fellowship cannot happen if you are isolated from other Christians. Fellowship with other Christians should center on what you have in common. What do you have in common? Your partnership with Christ in the Gospel! What if what has united you with others in your church is something other than the Gospel? (E.g., dynamic youth program, excellent music ministry, quality child-care, plenty of others who are at your same stage of life, people who hold some [secondary] doctrinal particular that you value, etc. Others?)
Champ,
I look forward to meeting you this Sunday at RBC. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts. Always need another good blog to add to my google reader.
-Mark
The English word “fellowship” (like “partnership”) is interesting, too–and well-chosen to render the Greek you discuss.
Old English (Anglo-Saxon, if you speak it in Germany) has a related word “gebeorscipe.” A “gebeorscipe” is what in modern terminology we would call a “kegger”: it is a gathering devoted to beer. Similarly, one’s “workmanship” or “craftsmanship” or “penmanship” are the exercise of one’s vocation as laborer, artisan, or scribe. From that same cluster comes the term “worship,” as a noun (“Your Worship”) and as a practice meaning the observed (or exercise in observing) worth of an exalted person.
I hold a “Fellowship” as a graduate student entrusted with teaching undergraduates to write. More exalted “Fellows” of this or that special program in the university work in support of particular goals, and are acknowledged to be members of that group (and given shares of its resources, and expected to produce results) on account of their participation in the field.
You’re quite right to rescue this term from the shady neighborhood of “niceness” and “jocularity” it has wandered into. Paul speaks often of his “fellows” as apostles (and Apostles) and disciples of Christ; we ought to be able to see that a “fellow,” like a disciple, is a person receiving training and participating in the work and training others: a “colleague” in Christ (if we would be Latinate about it).
Cheers,
PGE
Just to add on to Pete’s comments, I looked up the Middle English origins:
Fellow – partner in a joint undertaking
Ship – condition, character, office, skill
I like the definition that I learned as a kid:
“Fellowship” – two or more fellows in one ship
That definition seems to fit the passive and active partnership definition that Champ has provided.
Mark, thanks for your comments. Welcome to the blog. Please introduce yourself on Sunday. I look forward to meeting you.
Pete, once again you’ve elevated the discussion to another level. I like your discussion on “fellowship” and your “colleague” synonym.
Mike, I’ve heard the “two fellows in a ship” statement before and found it simple, but spot on. Glad you brought that up.
Personally, in response to all the Middle English comments, I’d like to offer my Middle Earth definition of fellowship. It’s a group of dissimilar beings on a single and unifying quest–to destroy the ring of power. Hence, “the fellowship of the ring.”
Now that last one is a fellowship I’d like to have joined and did so many times in my imagination as a teen plowing my way through LOTR.
I have enjoyed the phrase “redemptive relationship” and first came across it in Bill Hull’s, “Can We Save the Evangelical Church?” I have described it as a relationship in which I am investing time, energy, and resources. Add to that all the “one another” passages in scripture, the admonitions to peacemaking (as articulated in Ken Sande’s “The Peacemaker”), and the work by Lane and Tripp (“Relationships: A Mess Worth Making”), and one begins to get a sense for how fellowship might really look. Doubtless, I can’t relate to everyone in a “deep” way, but as Tripp says, “I can’t take the gospel seriously and not take my relationships seriously.”