A Fuller Understanding of Every Good Thing, Revisited
Posted by Sandy in Blessed Life, Christian Living, the church, training for spiritual growth, tags: PhilemonI pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
Philemon 1:6
In my last blog, I expanded on the idea that sharing our faith with nonbelievers helps us to gain a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. What a great motivation for doing so!
As I was finishing the blog, God tickled my brain with another meaning. It sent me to the Greek New Testament dictionary to find out what word was actually used for “sharing.” I was surprised to find the word koinonia. I have never associated that word with the evangelistic sharing of our faith. I was running out of time, so I made a note to get back to it.
While visiting my sister half way across the country, and attending a church with a much different style than my home church, God continued to nurture thoughts about the koinonia of our faith and how it helps us gain a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. I now have the wonderful luxury of three hours of “free time” while I fly home and am doing some research. I’ve looked up all the passages with the word koinonia and read a number of commentary and dictionary entries related to the word. How fun! (Yes, I’m a bit of a word nerd.) Come along on the journey with me. While my trip took about 2 hours, yours should be much quicker!
The word koinonia means a number of things (as most Greek words do). It’s used seventeen times in the New Testament.
- In only two passages does it mean “communication,” as most interpret it in the passage we’re looking at.
- In two other passages it’s used in relationship to sharing materially with other believers.
- All remaining uses of the word are translated “fellowship” or “communion.”
The fellowship or communion of koinonia is a very rich fellowship or intimacy. Ron Sider describes it this way:
For the early Christians, koinonia was not the frilly “fellowship” of church-sponsored, biweekly bowling parties. It was not tea, cookies, and sophisticated small talk in [the] Fellowship Hall after the sermon. It was an almost unconditional sharing of their lives with the other members of Christ’s body.
Ronald J. Sider
Since this is the overwhelmingly more common translation of the word, let’s apply it to our passage and see where it takes us:
I pray that you may be active in [the fellowship of] your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
Philemon 1:6
Or perhaps:
I pray that you may be active in intimately living a life of faith with one another, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
Philemon 1:6
There are many passages that make it clear we are not to live our faith in isolation. This passage goes a step further – it says we cannot gain a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ when we live our faith without koinonia relationships with other believers. Gaining that fuller understanding occurs as we share what God is doing in our lives with others to encourage and teach them, and they share what God is doing in their lives to encourage and teach us. It also occurs as they see us shrinking back from our first love and admonish us to stay faithful.
We Americans don’t like anyone in our business. We like our independence and like to live our lives the way we want to live them. This is the antithesis of the Gospel message and of koinonia. Koinonia requires a sharing of lives that makes independence obsolete.
We especially don’t like it when others are bringing correction to us. I would venture to say that most people quit attending their church because the pastor or another believer has attempted to bring correction into their life. How very sad. God has placed our pastors and fellow believers in our lives to help us gain that full understanding of every good thing He has given us. When we sever those relationships we cut ourselves off from the growth God has for us. That means we haven’t learned what God wanted us to learn, so the likelihood is that we will face the same or similar situation in the next church we attend. If we continue in our independent attitude, we eventually give up on church because it is full of people who want to be a part of our lives when we simply want credit for going to church.
God wants more from us and has more for us. He wants us to have koinonia relationships – intimate fellowship with other believers that allows them to speak words of correction and life into our lives. Without it we’ll never become the men and women God wants us to be.
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