You may recall a lovely statement by Paul about his fellowship with other Christians and their acceptance of him: "James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, when they recognized the grace which had been given to me, extended to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship..."
Every congregation of Christians ought to pattern itself according to the express will of Christ which he showed when he established the first congregations in his name. Congregations (and indeed individual Christians) should recognize each other by that one criterion: the doctrine of Jesus Christ. This is the way Paul felt about fellowship. He says to the Philippians, "I thank my God in view of your fellowship in the gospel... In the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all fellowshippers of grace with me"
There is a certain special character and definite identity which comes from the merit of Christ and not from the institutions of men. Christ alone priveleges us to gather in his name as his body which he purchased with his own blood
If you find someone who loves the gospel and lives the gospel, then you have found someone with whom you have fellowship in Christ. By the gospel standard alone we recognize whom we recognize, and reject whom we reject. That is the only proper
Like most good things, fellowship is balanced
An obvious question about fellowship is how broad should it be? Should we be so broad as to recognize and fellowship every church that's listed in the telephone directory? Or should we be so narrow as to fellowship only those who are in all points as we are. It is clear that there has to be a balance, and perhaps we could have headed this section of our lesson “The Balance of Fellowship”
In theory, fellowship is as broad as the brotherhood. Every Christian is in fellowship "with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ — their Lord and ours"
Perhaps it will help if we understand that the Greek word koinonia, which is translated “fellowship” may also be translated “sharing”. This takes some of the mystery out of the question of fellowship. We have fellowship with people in whatever we share with them. This helps us to see ourselves as in fellowship with people up to a point and in certain points, whilst at the same time being out of fellowship with them in other points which need to be addressed. A partial fellowship is certainly better than none at all, and is more likely to lead to a
Paul also uses other words to express fellowship. One of these is , sumphoneesis
The story of Apollos is a good example of balance in fellowship. His teaching about baptism was wrong, but rather than having no fellowship with him, Priscilla and Aquila taught him "the way of the Lord more perfectly" which he accepted, and so a fuller fellowship ensued
When we read Paul's letters to the churches, we find him pointing out error and unfaithfulness. He writes to the Galatians, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting... Christ for a different gospel... O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you"
I suppose we could list several things that hinder fellowship. Some of them are obvious, such as “all those little rabbits in the fields of corn”, namely envy, jealousy, malice, and pride. Rather than talk about those, there are two barriers of a different kind
The first barrier is issue mongering. Paul mentions "questions that cause strife" at least four times
The second barrier is tradition mongering. Jesus condemned the religious traditions of his time which contradicted the word of God. He was opposed to those who were "teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men"