What the Bible says about Church Devoted to Fellowship
(From Forerunner Commentary)

On the day of Pentecost in AD 31, Peter preached an inspired sermon to Jews and proselytes from around the Roman world who had gathered in Jerusalem for the holy day. When he finished, three thousand of his listeners stepped forward to be baptized and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior (Acts 2:41). Just that quickly, the church—a sizable one, at that—was inaugurated. Suddenly, three thousand people, who may have had little else in common, were thrown together as brethren. Things could have gone very badly very quickly, but to their credit, as Acts 2:42 in The New English Translation Bible (NET) informs us, "They were devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Among the four things to which these early converts devoted themselves was fellowship. Fellowship immediately became an important part of their reasons for meeting together. It was one of their prime objectives. What is fellowship? We talk about fellowship, and we often tell one another that what we need is more fellowship. However, our modern ideas of fellowship may have become so watered-down that the word no longer carries the same meaning that it did during this infancy stage of the church, which is highly praised for its unity (see verse 44; 4:32-33; 5:12; etc.). We are not surprised to read that the early church devoted itself to "the apostles' teaching" and "to prayer." These two—essentially, study and prayer—are the most important means of growth and effectiveness in the Christian life, and this is everywhere evident in the rest of Scripture. Yet, Luke records that these early Christians also devoted themselves to fellowship. They just did not have fellowship, going through the motions of being with each other; they devoted themselves to it. This means that fellowship was a priority, and one of their foremost objectives in gathering together. To them, just being with one another was not necessarily fellowship. Instead, it was something that they devoted themselves to accomplish when they were together. We often view fellowship as what we do. We have casual conversations and common activities. This is not wrong and can contribute to fellowship, but it falls far short of fellowship according to biblical standards, as well as falling short of the meaning and use of the Greek words that underlie the English word "fellowship." We may be thinking, "My view of fellowship is much richer and deeper than mere social activity. True fellowship involves getting together for spiritual purposes: for sharing needs, for prayer, and for discussing God's Word to encourage, comfort, and edify one another." And we would be right. These things are certainly aspects of Christian fellowship, but even they do not comprise the full meaning of Christian fellowship in the New Testament. Related Topics: Basket of Summer Fruit | Christian Fellowship | Christian Fellowship in the New Testament | Church Devoted to Fellowship | Devoted to Fellowship | Fellowship | Fellowship as Edifying One Another

1 Corinthians 11:23-32 Through the apostle Paul, God has made certain that all of the members of the Body of Christ recognize, not only the necessity of participation in this solemn memorialization of Christ's death, but also the careful preparation that is a key to proper participation. Each individual must scrupulously examine himself while recognizing the inestimable cost of what has been done on his behalf. God has clearly shown what He expects from all the participants leading up to that evening. He does not intend for us to go through this examination process with a sense of self-condemnation. Rather, as the Greek word for "examine" indicates, God intends it to be an approval process of making an honest evaluation of how we are relating to the One who has paid the price for our lives, the One to whom we owe allegiance in our every thought and action. The other side of the coin is that, without proper preparation for the Passover, we bring condemning judgment on ourselves for not undergoing the preparation process with all our hearts. God has given us an assortment of tools to handle this process, and probably one of the best is to go through Jesus' own words spoken in the last 24 hours of His human life. Of the 21 chapters in John's gospel, five of them (13-17), almost a quarter of the book, are detailed instructions from that one day, which we can use as a guide for our self-examination leading to the Passover. Jesus spoke these words either directly to His disciples or indirectly, as in His prayer to His Father just before He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane to be tried and crucified. We could focus on various points from these words to guide our personal examination as we approach that most solemn evening, but we will concentrate on one important and telling piece of our relationship with Him, as seen in our relationships with one another. In John 15:11-19, in the middle of His last crucial directions to His chosen disciples on the night before He offered Himself for our sins, Jesus teaches: These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Of all the instructions Jesus gave to us on that night, this may be the most encouraging, and at the same time, among the most difficult for us to realize in our blossoming relationships within the church. God has ordained that we produce fruit engendered by a loving relationship among the friends of God in a world of those who are, through blindness, His enemies. Out of the entire world, we have been chosen now to develop that friendship, not with the world, but with those placed in the love and friendship of the Body of Christ! This relationship, unique among the brethren separated from the world to Christ, is a critical part of the judgment God is talking about in I Corinthians 11:31. This should be a key element of our evaluation as we strive to keep the Passover in a worthy manner. Are we really living up to the ordained responsibilities of the friends of God within our relationships with one another? Proverbs 18:24 reads, "A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." The deep meaning of this verse in Hebrew gets lost in the English translation. At first glance, it seems to say merely that to be a friend we need to be friendly, but a closer examination reveals it to be a clear warning to those God has separated from this world through Christ. The exact translation of this verse has spawned quite a bit of controversy, but it is not difficult to see a clear tie between this verse and what Jesus tells those who are in a proper relationship with Him, as recorded in John 15. Those in a relationship with Him must have the same relationship with one another, a relationship that binds to Christ and separates from the world! Mark Schindler Passover and Friends United in Truth (Part One) Related Topics: Appropriate Judgment | Body of Christ | Christ's Death Leads to Relationship with God | Church Devoted to Fellowship | Friend of Christ | Friends of God | Friendship with God | Friendship, Godly | God's Chosen People | Passover | Passover and Friends United in Christ | Passover as Memorial of Christ's Death | Self Evaluation | Self Examination | Separation from World

 

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