Authentic Christian Fellowship - David S. Huffman

Fellowship. It is a word that is common among Christians. Of course, it isn’t a word that is exclusive among believers. The English word itself, according to the Oxford Languages online dictionary, conveys a “friendly association, especially with people who share one's interests.” Generally, such a friendly association among those who share a common interest entails some type of social activity. It might be meeting up at sporting event to watch their team play or attending a concert of their favorite musical artist. People gather with one another at bars, restaurants, and homes for meals. A service project motivated out of a common concern may also bring people together as well. Whatever has bonded them together, such gatherings may rightly be regarded as a type of fellowship. 

To be sure, there is common ground here when we begin to think of Christian fellowship. There is no question that believers share common interests and goals. Yet too often Christians can associate fellowship as primarily limited to gatherings with one another for meals or other social activities. Yet, the biblical idea of fellowship penetrates much deeper. As believers, we share a common identity and a common life in Jesus Christ. Authentic Christian fellowship yields a deeper connectedness to other believers than mere common interests and goals (though it includes these things). It entails a vital union with Christ and communion with God. Out of these two foundational principles flow the kind of character that should typify believer’s relationships with one another. 

I should state here that my thoughts on this matter have been greatly influenced by two people, the 15th century Puritan John Owen (1616-1683) and the late Jerry Bridges (1929-2016) who served as a longtime staff member of The Navigators. I commend their works to you, particularly Owen’s Communion with God and Bridges’ True Community. In view of the limited space for this article, I want to draw attention to what genuine Christian fellowship ought to look like in practice as the fruits of our common bond in Christ.

First, genuine Christian fellowship begins with union with Christ. In 1 John 1:3, the apostle wrote, “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” The word for fellowship here is the Greek word koinonia, which can also be translated as partnership, participation, sharing, and contribution. The key point of this text, for our purposes, is that the foundation for fellowship with the apostolic witnesses and, thus, with God the Father and God the Son is believing apostolic witness. And this witness or testimony (cf. 1 John 1:2) concerns the “word of life,” that is the gospel, the good news revealed in the person and work of the Son, Jesus Christ. There is a content of knowledge that must be affirmed as true and embraced by faith if there is to be any true fellowship. In 1 John 4:1-6 we see that denying that Jesus has come in the flesh is a characteristic of everything that is antichrist. It is a tacit denial of the testimony of the apostolic witnesses who heard with their ears, saw with their eyes, and touched with their hands the “word of life” (1 John 1:1). If we would enter into this fellowship, then we begin by believing the word of life as he is proclaimed through his chosen witnesses. Fellowship with God begins, in the apostle Paul‘s words, when we are ”baptized into Christ Jesus.” That is, when we believe the gospel. We are united with him, by faith, in his death and in a resurrection like his (Romans 6:2-5). 

This union is also a vital union. It brings us new life, welling up to eternal life (John 4:24). This is what we often mean by the phrase “born again,” which points us also to the work of the Holy Spirit in uniting us to Christ (cf. John 3:1-8). And as Robert Haldane this union, believers are 

“united to Him who has the inexhaustible fulness of the Spirit and he cannot fail to participate in the spirit of holiness which dwells without measure in his glorious Head. It is impossible that the streams can be dried up when the fountain continues to flow; and it is equally impossible for the members not to share in the same holiness which dwells so abundantly in the Head. As the branch, when united to the living vine, it necessarily partakes of its life and fatness, so the sinner, when united to Christ, must receive an abundant supply of sanctifying grace out of His immeasurable fulness.”

Second, while more can be said of this union with Christ, it is our entry point into communion with the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here the word communion is another word for fellowship. And John Owen is particularly helpful on this subject. He explains what this communion entails:

“It is . . . mutual communication in giving and receiving after the most holy and spiritual manner, which is between God and the saints while they walk together in a covenant of peace, ratified by in the blood of Jesus . . .”

We can add here (and elsewhere Owen does) that it is a communication applied to us by the indwelling Spirit of God. We have come to share in the life of God. And this is what it means to be a Christian, as Sinclair Ferguson has stated. 

Clarifying what Owen wrote here, he writes,

“Once we were aliens from the family of God, strangers to Christ, without desire or power to please Him. But now, through the Son whom the Father sent into the world to save us, and the Spirit who brings all the resources of Christ to us, we have come to know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

[Thus] to become a Christian believer is to be brought into a reality far grander than anything we could ever have imagined. It means communion with the triune God.”

Finally, how does it inform and affect our fellowship? Since authentic Christian fellowship begins with and is grounded in our union with Christ and our communion with the Triune God, it means that we share this together as believers. Rather than being a “friendly association, especially with people who share one's interests,” we are likened to being a living organism. Indeed, as Paul describes the church, believers are together a “body,” with Christ as the head of this body (1 Cor. 12; Eph. 5.23). Every part participates in the whole, united to Christ and communing with all the Persons of the Godhead. 

So, authentic Christian fellowship is not about friendly chats over coffee and donuts, but about our shared relationship and communion with God. This should then lead us to a much deeper way of relating to one another. Here I would simply draw attention to our conversationswith one another. They should have a more spiritual quality about them. Indeed, this is the very thrust of what we read about the believers in Jerusalem following Pentecost. Those who had received the word through Peter’s preaching of the gospel and were baptized “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”(Acts 2:41, 42). Jerry Bridges helpfully explains that the fellowship spoken of here was “sharing with one another what God was teaching through the Scriptures.” It was “an important part of true [Christian] community.” It is what distinguished or set apart believers from all other types of associations. 

I, like Bridges, have too often observed little or no Scripture mentioned in the conversations between believers at church or in other contexts. Seldom do Christians seem to ask one another what the Lord is teaching them. Often prayer requests have nothing to do with growing in faithful obedience to Christ, but rather focus on physical needs of one kind or another. How different was the character of the early church and how different from believers today who are thriving in their walk with the Lord!

Much more could be said here on this subject, but I will conclude with one final thought from J. C. Ryle. May his sound counsel spur us on to a more authentic Christian fellowship.

“What do we know ourselves of spiritual conversation with other Christians? Perhaps we read our Bibles, and pray in private, and use public means of grace. It is all well, very well. But if we stop short here we neglect a great privilege and have yet much to learn. We ought to "consider one another to provoke to love and good works." We ought to "exhort" and "edify one another." (Heb. 10:24; 1 Thess. 5:11.) Have we no time for spiritual conversation? Let us think again. The quantity of time wasted on frivolous, trifling, and unprofitable talk, is fearfully great. Do we find nothing to say on spiritual subjects? Do we feel tongue-tied and speechless on the things of Christ? Surely if this is the case, there must be something wrong within. A heart right in the sight of God will generally find words. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." (Matt. 12:34)”