Fellowship

Fellowship (koinonia in Greek; related to koinos, "common") is a central New Testament concept denoting the shared life of believers with God and with one another through the Holy Spirit. Its primary dimension is vertical: fellowship with God consists in knowing his will (Job 22:21), agreement with his purposes (Amos 3:2), mutual love, and participation in the divine life (1 John 1:3 — fellowship "with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ").

The horizontal dimension — fellowship among believers — flows necessarily from the vertical. Paul's "the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Corinthians 13:14) and the Jerusalem church's devotion to "the apostles' teaching and the fellowship" (Acts 2:42) establish koinonia as a constitutive mark of the Christian community. In practical terms, fellowship involved shared prayer, worship, teaching, the Lord's Supper, and economic sharing with those in need (Romans 15:26 uses koinonia for the financial collection for Jerusalem). First John's epistolary argument grounds authentic fellowship in walking in the light, confession of sin, and love of brothers — with no room for fellowship between light and darkness (1 John 1:6-7).