How Our Movement’s Pioneers Understood ‘the Fellowship’ in Acts 2:42 and the Implications for Today
By Michael C. Mack
Apparently there has been some debate about the meaning of koinonia (Christian fellowship/community) as described in Acts 2:42 and the rest of the New Testament. I didn’t know that . . . until I listened to a recent podcast on the topic.
John Mark Hicks, professor of theology at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., was interviewed on an After Class Podcast on Acts 2:42 and its application for modern churches. Hicks points out that Acts 2:42 has been used in a variety of Christian circles for many years as a “programmatic text” of the four practices that serve as markers of the true church. The four practices presented in the verse—the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer—can be viewed as the “rule of worship” or “rule of faith” for the church. Nothing too debatable there.
Where we run into some contention is in the interpretation of the words that describe those four practices. For instance, does “breaking of bread” mean sharing a meal or sharing the Lord’s Supper or both? (In the early church context, I believe it’s both, but people smarter than I have debated the meaning of the phrase over the years.) Apparently, the meaning of the word fellowship has also been debated.
Hicks points out that Alexander Campbell, for instance, viewed fellowship as the sharing of monetary resources, that is, the contributions on the first day of the week. So had John Calvin and other theologians and pastors. Isaac Errett, founder and first editor of Christian Standard, on the other hand, “thought it was broader than that,” says Hicks. Koinonia as “shared resources” seems evident in Acts 2:44-45: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” The word common is koinonia in the Greek. We see the connection in our English words, community, common, communion, and others.
To be sure, a huge part of the New Testament church’s life in community was in how they shared everything with one another, backed up by Acts 4:33-35:
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. . . . And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
I’ve experienced this kind of sharing-everything community in several small groups I’ve been blessed to be a part of. I’ve shared those stories elsewhere in my blog posts, articles, and books. Indeed, a mark of true biblical community is that there are no needy persons among them. Unfortunately, this is not the norm in many churches—or even in many small groups. It should be. We must be about restoring it in our churches today.
But, like Isaac Errett, I believe biblical community is more than just that. In true biblical community, we share not only financial resources and food, but much more. Our individual and mutual communion with God and our community with one another are so intertwined that they cannot be separated. As we gather in biblical community, we share God’s love, grace, joy, peace, wisdom, and more with one another. We also share our sorrows and burdens and allow others to carry them with us. We share our struggles, temptations, and sins with one another through confession, and God brings healing. Much of this happens in the practice of the New Testament “one another” passages; it’s all part of New Testament koinonia.
God uses all these practices—the apostles’ teaching, everything contained in how we share with one another in the fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer—to transform us and mature us. It’s all part of God’s design to grow us spiritually and his church numerically.
But we must not limit the extent of what this biblical community entails and requires of us. It’s so much more than just hanging out and enjoying one another’s company. When we embrace the community we see lived out in the early church, we will be enlivened and emboldened; we will live with contentment, joy, peace, power . . . and so many more of God’s resources. It’s the kind of life God desires for us—a life where we may disagree with one another but we still are “one in heart and mind.” It’s a life in which God’s grace is powerfully at work in all of us and there are no needy persons among us. It’s a self-sacrificing life where we don’t live “out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility [we] value others above [ourselves], not looking to [our] own interests but each of [us] to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4), just as Jesus did.
When we live like this, our community life comes to its intended fruition: “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (v. 47).
I recently came across this interesting meme on social media:
“The renewal of the church will not start with microphones on stages, it will start with meals around tables.” — Dan White Jr.
This doesn’t take anything away from worship, preaching, or any other part of the life of the church. But, yes, I believe renewal will begin with face-to-face, heart-to-heart relationships. It happened in the early church in and through valuing-others-above-ourselves community, and it will happen in that kind of community today as well.
The Christian community we see in the New Testament church and which is available to the church today is one of the greatest, richest gifts God has given his church. It’s a gift that flows out of his own triune nature, and it will be a part of the community we experience in the new heaven and new earth. It’s a gift, a blessing, that itself is meant to be shared with all others as the Lord adds to our community those who are being saved.
Michael C. Mack serves as editor of Christian Standard. This article was adapted from a post on his Small Group Leadership blog.
This is an important subject, well-treated. Dan White’s comment that “renewal . . . will start with meals around tables” reminds me of the recent annual birthday supper at our church, which normally consists of a meal, congregational singing, special music and a speaker. However, due to time constraints it was simplified to “just the meal.” Just to eat with someone for an hour has everything: intimacy, relaxation, give-and-take, laughter, spirituality. I came home feeling good all over, instead of exhausted by a long program.
In some churches the only “fellowship” offered is that one-minute moment during worship where we wander around the room and shake hands with each other. Doesn’t work. We need to create more space in our programs for the kind of fellowship that happens spontaneously, when people are not rushed.
Two replies: 1. v. 47 correctly identifies the evangelistic program of those first disciples; complete, fully competent, useful to the disciples and the people around them. Have lived that into the sixth decade, now, with ten people. 2. That Milligan grad/UCLA wiseman once described ‘koinonia’ as those with some, give to those who need; in order that the needy, for that time, make it through to a place of having some. Then, they are fit to help others in need, as they were helped, through to another place of usefulness. It is neither Rocket Surgery, nor Brain Science. Ah, but most congregations would rather be self-entertaining to the ‘gates …? Obligatory 🙂