Acts 2:42
42 They were continually and faithfully devoting themselves to the instruction of the apostles, and to fellowship, to [i]eating meals together and to prayers.
The early church was a strong church and the above scripture highlights some important things that they stayed devoted to. Yesterday we talked about the importance of being devoted to sound teaching, today we look at the second thing they were devoted to and that is fellowship.
We talk a lot about fellowship in church circles, it is common to hear one saying that they are going for fellowship, but what is fellowship?
The word translated to fellowship is the word Koinonia. The word means joint participation, it means communion, to share together in common. Another meaning is partnership.
Biblical fellowship is about sharing something with someone. It means we accept each other with our faults, problems and failures. It requires that we esteem others higher than ourselves. That would solve about 95% of problems that come up.
The church in the book of Acts was in such fellowship and unity that they shared in common all that they had. No one looked at himself as better than the other and everybody was out to treat the other as better than self, now that’s real fellowship.
God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are a reflection of what true fellowship is all about.
A true fellowship is a place where one feels loved and not condemned, a place of growth, a place of forgiveness; it is a place where we get to serve each other as we build each other up. It is a place where we are accepted a place where we focus on God and also on one another. All the one another’s of the new testament are meant to happen in fellowship, love one another, encourage one another, forgive one another, share one with another and so on.
If that then is true fellowship, is it similar to what we have in our churches? Have we become too busy for one another? Our churches have a classroom setting where we all sit facing one direction listening to mostly one individual and after that we are in a hurry to run to the next thing. We hardly have true fellowship. May we learn to connect and have true fellowship because we are a body, one body and if we are disjointed then the body cannot function well.
