Koinonia
Koinonia(/ˌkɔɪnoʊˈniːə/),[1]communion,orfellowshipin Christianity is the bond uniting Christians as individuals and groups with each other and with Jesus Christ. It refers togroup cohesivenessamong Christians.
Pre-Christian antecedents
[edit]Koinoniais atransliteratedform of theGreekwordκοινωνία,which refers to concepts such as fellowship, joint participation, partnership, the share which one has in anything, a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution. In thePoliticsofAristotleit is used to mean a community of any size from a single family to apolis.As a polis, it is the Greek for republic or commonwealth. In later Christianity it identifies the idealized state of fellowship and unity that should exist within theChristianchurch, theBody of Christ.This usage may have been borrowed from the early Epicureans—as it is used by Epicurus' Principal Doctrines 37–38.[2]
The term communion, derived fromLatincommunio('sharing in common'),[3]is related. The term "Holy Communion" normally refers to the Christian rite also called theEucharist.
New Testament
[edit]The essential meaning of thekoinoniaembraces concepts conveyed in the English terms community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy.Koinoniacan therefore refer in some contexts to a jointly contributed gift.[4]The word appears 19 times in most editions of the Greek New Testament. In theNew American Standard Bible,it is translated "fellowship" twelve times, "sharing" three times, and "participation" and "contribution" twice each.[5]
Koinoniaappears once in the ancient Greek translation of theOld Testamentknown as theSeptuagint,in Leviticus 6:2[6]
It is found in 43 verses of the New Testament as a noun (koinōnia17x,koinōnos10x,sugkoinōnos4x), in its adjectival (koinōnikos1x), or verbal forms (koinōneō8x,sugkoinōneō3x). The word is applied, according to the context, to sharing or fellowship, or people in such relation, with:
- a divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), God (1 John 1:6), the Father and His Son (1 John 1:3), Jesus, Son of God (1 Corinthians 1:9), his sufferings (Philippians 3:10;1 Peter 4:13), his future glory (1 Peter 5:1), the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14;Philippians 2:1)
- the blood and the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16), pagan sacrifices and gods (1 Corinthians 10:18–20)
- fellow Christians, their sufferings and the faith (Acts 2:42;Galatians 2:9;1 John 1:3,1:7;Hebrews 10:33;Revelation 1:9;Philemon 1:6,1:17)
- a source of spiritual favours (Romans 11:17), the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:23), light and darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14)
- others' sufferings and consolation (2 Corinthians 1:7;Philippians 4:14), their evangelizing work (Philippians 1:5), their graces or privileges (Romans 15:27;Philippians 1:7), their material needs, to remedy which assistance is given (Romans 12:13,15:26–27;2 Corinthians 8:4,9:13;Galatians 6:6;Philippians 4:15;1 Timothy 6:18;Hebrews 13:16)
- the evil deeds of others (Matthew 23:30;Ephesians 5:11;1 Timothy 5:22;2 John 1:11;Revelation 18:4)
- the bodily human nature all have in common (Hebrews 2:14)
- a work partnership, secular or religious (Luke 5:10;2 Corinthians 8:23)
Of these usages, Bromiley's International Standard Bible Encyclopedia selects as especially significant the following meanings:
- I. Common life in general (only inActs 2:42)
- II. Communion between particular groups, the most remarkable instance of which was that between Jews and Gentiles
- III. Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ
- IV. Sharing in divine revelation and with God himself (1 John 1:1–7).[7]
Aspects
[edit]Sacramental meaning
[edit]TheEucharistis the sacrament of communion with one another in the one body of Christ. This was the full meaning of eucharistickoinoniain the earlyCatholic Church.[8]St.Thomas Aquinaswrote, "the Eucharist is the sacrament of the unity of the Church, which results from the fact that many are one in Christ."[9]
Between churches
[edit]
Bymetonymy,the term is used of a group of Christian churches that have this close relationship of communion with each other. An example is theAnglican Communion.
If the relationship between the churches is complete, involving fullness of "those bonds of communion – faith, sacraments and pastoral governance – that permit the Faithful to receive the life of grace within the Church",[11]it is calledfull communion.However, the term "full communion" is frequently used in a broader sense, to refer instead to a relationship between Christian churches that are not united, but have only entered into an arrangement whereby members of each church have certain rights within the other.
If a church recognizes that another church, with which it lacks bonds of pastoral governance, shares with it some of the beliefs and essential practices of Christianity, it may speak of "partial communion" between it and the other church.
Between the living and the dead
[edit]Thecommunion of saintsis the relationship that, according to the belief of Christians, exists between them as people made holy by their link with Christ. That this relationship extends not only to those still in earthly life, but also to those who have gone past death to be "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8) is a belief among some Christians.[12]Their communion is believed to be "a vital fellowship between all the redeemed, on earth and in the next life, that is based on the common possession of the divine life of grace that comes to us through the risen Christ".[13]
Since the word rendered in English as "saints" can mean not only "holy people" but also "holy things", "communion of saints" also applies to the sharing by members of the church in the holy things of faith, sacraments (especially theEucharist), and the other spiritual graces and gifts that they have in common.
The term "communion" is applied to sharing in the Eucharist by partaking of the consecrated bread and wine, an action seen as entering into a particularly close relationship with Christ. Sometimes the term is applied not only to this partaking but to the whole of the rite or to the consecrated elements.
Between individual Christians
[edit]AChristian fellowshipis a community,social club,benefit society,and/or afraternal organizationwhether formal or informal of Christians that worship, pray, cooperate, volunteer, socialize, and associate with each other on the foundation of their shared Christian faith. Members of Christian fellowships may or may not be part of the samechurch congregationsordenominations,although many are associated with a given local church congregation (in turn possibly associated with a given denomination) or aninterdenominationalgroup of several local area congregations, some are established asparachurchvoluntary associationsorstudent societies,and others form out of casualnon-denominationalfriend groups/social groupsamong individual Christians in some way affiliated with universities, colleges, schools, other educational institutions, community centers, places of employment, or at any other place, entity, or among neighbors and acquaintances, made up of people who worship, congregate, and socialize together based on shared religious beliefs.[14][15][16]
See also
[edit]- Religious identity,the sense of membership in a religious group and its importance to one's self-concept
References
[edit]- ^"Koinonia also spelt Kenonia".New Testament Greek Lexicon – New American Standard.Bible Study Tools.
- ^Norman DeWitt argues in his bookSt Paul and Epicurusthat many early Christian ideas were borrowed from the Epicureans.
- ^American Heritage Dictionary of the English LanguageArchived2005-09-02 at theWayback Machine
- ^Thayer 1885, p. 352.
- ^NAS Exhaustive Concordance
- ^"Koinōnía in the LXX".Blue Letter Bible.17 December 2021.
- ^Bromiley, Geoffrey W.The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: A-D(William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995ISBN0-8028-3781-6).
- ^Hertling, L.Communion, Church and Papacy in Early Christianity.Chicago: Loyola University, 1972.
- ^ST III, 82. 2 ad 3; cf. 82. 9 ad 2.
- ^Gospel Figures in Artby Stefano Zuffi 2003ISBN978-0-89236-727-6p. 252
- ^Skylstad, William S. (Apr 5, 2006)."Notification from Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts on theactus formalis defectionis"(PDF).Canon Law Society of America.Archived fromthe originalon 2009-03-19.Retrieved2016-04-15.
- ^John Henry Hobart,A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Protestant Episcopal Church(Swords, Stanford & Company, 1840), p. 258
- ^Kenneth Baker,Fundamentals of Catholicism(Ignatius Press 1983ISBN978-0-89870027-5), p. 149
- ^Norman DeWitt argues in his bookSt Paul and Epicurusthat many early Christian ideas were borrowed from the Epicureans.
- ^"Understanding Biblical Christian Fellowship".Grace Theological Seminary.2021-03-17.Retrieved2022-07-01.
- ^"What Counts as Christian" Fellowship "?".Radical.Retrieved2022-07-01.
Bibliography
[edit]- NAS Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries.Lockman Foundation. 1998 [1981].
- Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1979).The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.Grand Rapids, Michigan:William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
- Lynch, Robert Porter; Prozonic, Ninon (2006)."How the Greeks created the First Golden Age of Innovation"(Microsoft Word).p. 14.Retrieved2007-04-08.
- Richards, Lawrence O. (1985).Expository Dictionary of Bible Words.Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Corporation.
- Thayer, Joseph H. (1885).Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament.Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.
Further reading
[edit]- Lewis-Elgidely, Verna.Koinonia in the Three Great Abrahamic Faiths: Acclaiming the Mystery and Diversity of Faiths.Cloverdale Books, 2007.ISBN978-1-929569-37-3
- Hauk, Gary H.Life Ventures.LifeWay Church Resources, 2012.ISBN978-1-4300-0975-7
