Spiritual Proximity and Community

Spiritual Community and Proximity Koinonia Fellowship – What the heck is that, Bingo night?

Fellowship these days is often based on the basis of agreement in doctrine. This is always said by those who agree with each other to be the apostolic doctrine. The basic idea is that “we can be friends and fellow members because we agree on these 16 truths”. Acts 2:42 is used: “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ doctrine…” Another common basis of fellowship is “worship” style—meaning either contemporary or traditional music. Still another ground is agreement over the ability of a speaker whose sermons the audience enjoys together. The shared audience experience is likened to fellowship. But all of these grounds are scripturally erroneous bases for local church association. In fact Galatians 5:20 tells us that doctrinal based factionalism is a work of the flesh. It is easy to see that taste in music as basis for faction is even more fleshly because “taste” is a almost always based on the physical senses.

Present day Christian fellowship compared to that presented in the New Testament reveals surprising divergence. Some today will drive 50 miles or so for an 11:00 appointment for a gathering for one of the above mentioned reasons. This fellowship will often include coffee served after the hour and twenty minute “celebration”. Smiles and glances of the anonymous faithful may be exchanged before the automobile ride home to distant anonymity. Near the fellowship hall where the coffee was served there usually is an office that attempts to combat the anonymity by processing visitor cards and “prayer requests” and “tithes” which are neatly compiled and catalogued.

The nature of these activities contrasted with New Testament fellowship or “koinonia” is noticeably different. Though present practice is beneficial it is beneath the intensity level of shared Christian living presented in the New Testament. Today choir members may meet to practice and get to know each others’ name, youth meet and learn and play and talk in a healthy setting, “staff” and elders meet and discuss the facilities, hiring and budgets. But none of this is on the same order as what is presented as fellowship (Greek word: koinonia) in the book of Acts or the Epistles:

Acts 2: 42-46: “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.”

This seems intense. Not like church life today. Not the meeting once per week assembled as an audience of strangers listening to songs and platform presentations. A question for today is the one of where God’s presence is. Is it mainly in the praise songs of the assembled crowd, as often stated, or rather in the cooperative life of the faithful?

It is written “Know ye not the YE are the temple of God?” 1 Cor. 3:16. We are provoked to what is meant, singing or cooperative life by the “ye” here, meaning saints.

After the incidents described in the passage above, Acts 4:32 continues to describe anointed and spontaneous community first described in Acts 2. Luke illustrates that the word “fellowship” in its original sense as in Acts 2:42 meant something quite different than a mere bingo game or coffee time.

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own but shared everything he had.” Acts 4:32

We remember that the earlier passage says that the believers “continued stedfastly (KJV)” in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship. Many of these people had already known each other for several years before Pentecost. Many of the new converts from the perimeter of the Roman Empire must not have known the others. The 500 believers familiar with each other grew to 10,000 family members overnight. Fellowship and community intensified during this growth period rather than dissipating. The reason given in the text is the influence of the Holy Spirit on the believers. The close association between communal behavior and it being attributed to the influence of the Holy Spirit is impossible to ignore. Not wanting the implication of this to stick, many scholars have resisted the meaning of these passages with weak cessationist arguments or even weaker economic arguments attributing later poverty in Jerusalem to the decisions of this period and ignoring the diaspora of Saul in Acts 9 and the Jewish persecution in general. But the progression of the narrative and the intended moral to be drawn from Acts 2:38 onward highlights the role of God and the Spirit in the communal behavior whether or not scholars find that inconvenient to their lifestyle.

“Peter said to them, "Repent… and be baptized… and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off…So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship (koinonia), to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people .And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

At the beginning of the passage the power given after conversion causing change is said to be “the gift of the Holy Spirit”. At the end of the passage after many days believers are still taking meals together while “praising God” and “the Lord was adding to their number” daily. It is a mind boggling and illogical stretch to say that the text is telling us that these people were diverted into doing things unapproved by God. The text puts God, the Lord and the Spirit – the Trinity --at the very heart of this first burst of Christian Koinonia.

This Koinonia Fellowship was so radical that it affected the believers in such a way that they naturally craved proximity with each other. They were constantly in and out of each other’s homes. Sometimes this was for the distribution of spiritual “food” and other times physical. In this and later cities and towns, they lived only a Sabbath day’s journey from each other (Acts 1:13). Their concept of brotherhood was carried out in the context of close distances – distances close enough to make sure that all their many widows (even if there were hundreds of them in various language groups) could be fed every day by daily distribution of food (Acts 6). If we can picture the distribution of food taking place as a church activity (notice it was not a para-church organization doing this) taking place even in a busy city such as Jerusalem we can see that fellowship of that church was close, all encompassing and full of actions of love. Proximity of the believers was necessary to accomplish this.

In the New Testament it can be seen that this degree of fellowship and commitment to the brotherhood extended down through the decades and miles throughout the first century as the churches multiplied in number and distance from Jerusalem. We can see proximity based community in places like Ephesus in Asia minor and in Corinth, Greece. For a discussion on fellowship in Ephesus and its so-called “candlestick” see our article entitled “What, no Candlestick?” The European Corinth in Paul’s day is also remarkable to us today not only for its problems but for its intensity of fellowship. Even with the church’s problems their gatherings were highly interactive with each person being a co-equal agent of God’s message (1Cor 12-14) including women (1 Cor. 11:5). But more noticeable in this context than that is the fact that if a member had to be expelled for immorality (1 Cor. 5) the grief and sense of loss was so great in the community and in the offending individual that he had to be readmitted quickly so as to prevent undue hardship. Paul puts it this way: “sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow”. (2 Cor. 2:6,7) This is strong evidence of community attachment. In our day it is unlikely that such a person would even want to come back when rejected by a fairly loosely committed group.

Probably the single factor today besides the level of zeal that might prevent this kind of New Testament fellowship is the lack of proximity among the members. In order to be authentic, church life needs to be brought back to a life of proximity between the brothers and sisters. Words such as “parish” or “commons”, which in medieval and colonial American times connoted proximity of believers to the church house, need to be supplemented with new words and forms that describe “community”. “Cell group”, “house church”, “small group” are new phrases attempting to capture this but still lack the sense of “neighbor” and “neighborhood” to approach the New Testament Koinonia ideal. Without this corporate Christianity in the 21st Century will be like that of the 20th Century – one that is largely a spectator’s faith.