What's with that "koinonia" business up top?

[totallythickskinned]

Top of each page you got "online koinonia" -- wassat?

[emilswift]

When setting up this Forum, we needed a sort of "motto" at the top of every page that could help our forum members keep an overall perspective on what this Forum is intended to provide. We thought at first we'd call it an "online conversation", then switched to an "online place" but both those seemed to miss what we felt God wanted to do with this Forum.

Then I thought of "online koinonia" which has the disadvantage of being an unknown (or misunderstood) word to almost everybody.

But I figured it's really important to understand koinonia in view of the new Move of God in the Building up of the Body of Christ in this spiritual season. So we used it just to help get it into people's vocabulary.

The word koinonia is used frequently in the New Testament (it's Greek) and is translated a bunch of ways. Usually, people who know the word say it means "fellowship" but that's not quite accurate, even though it's translated in lots of English Bibles that way.

The problem is that the way we use "fellowship" doesn't fit how the Bible uses koinonia. In fact, probably the closest "right" use is from Tolkien's "Fellowship of the Ring". When church-goers use the word as in, "We should get together this week and fellowship," it usually means little more than to meet with the purpose of encouraging one another and often literally means, "Let's get together over a cup of coffee."

But koinonia actually refers to a "co-owned project; a shared endeavor for which people have united their lives and resources." In ancient writings from New Testament days, there are many examples of this usage. Which is why Tolkien's use is closer than most uses of the word "fellowship". In LOTR, the "fellowship" is that group of individuals who banded their lives and all their resources together to accomplish a single goal -- the destruction of the One Ring. These travelers had committed their lives together in a mighty, united effort to save their world of Middle-earth.

When John the Beloved wrote his first letter (1 John), he began by drawing a picture of the koinonia into which God seeks to draw His children. In his opening verses, he says,

"That which we have seen and heard [Jesus] declare we unto you, that you all also may have fellowship (koinonia) with us: and truly our fellowship (koinonia) is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."

Many readers simply pass over these words as some sort of "standard greeting" for New Testament letters, but there's nothing "standard" about it. In fact, it's an incredible invitation, the throwing open of a spiritual "door", into a totally new lifestyle for those who (in faith) have become one with Jesus Christ. Thinking in terms of the LOTR "Fellowship", it's as if God is forming a group of people -- not servants but peers and co-owners -- who are committing their lives and resources to a common task -- and that "task" of course is variously portrayed as the "Kingdom of God" or the "Body of Christ", "God's Building", the "Temple", the "Bride", etc.

The use of this word (koinonia) means that God isn't simply looking for some "servants" to "work for Him" in "building His Kingdom". No! Instead He's calling together "friends and family" to join Him in a massive, earth-transforming, world-saving "project" that is co-owned by every person who is in Christ.

SO, when we put up the description of the goal of this KingdomScribes' Forum, we've called it a koinonia -- a "project, co-owned between us and Father God and His Son, Jesus" which provides an opportunity for the communications and connections necessary for the Building up of the Body of Christ today.

Emil