THE TERM “ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ” WHAT IS THE THEOLOGY BEHIND ITS USAGE IN JOHANNINE CORPUS, ESPECIALLY IN 1 JOHN

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Nature Of The Joannine Letters

1.2 Purpose Of 1John

2. MEANING OF THE TERM “ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ”

2.1 Κοινωνια In The New Testament

3. THEOLOGY OF USE OF ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ IN 1JOHN

3.1 Κοινωνία With God And Christ

3.2 Κοινωνία And The Light

3.3 Κοινωνια In The Community Of The Faithful

4. EVALUATION

5. CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. NTRODUCTION

Paging through the New Testament section of the Scripture, one discovers that there are certain words that so basic and significant such that to understand a good number of the books of the bible, there is need observe such words contextually with a critical and exegetical theological telescope. One of such kind of words is Greek word “κοινωνια”. The fundamental interest of this easy is a focus on this Greek word and the theological implications in the first letter of John.

1.1 Nature Of The Joannine Letters

One may not understand the significance and use of the term κοινωνια in the 1st epistle of John it there is no clear observation of the nature of John’s letters. The Johannine letters are such that they belong to the same status with the forth Gospel and Revelation which are all ascribed to the same author, John. The style of writing in all these books clearly indicates that it is the same author penning through all of them. Despite the similarity in style, it has been observed by scriptural scholars that this first epistle of John has a slight difference from the other two epistles in the sense that it does not have the structure of a letter. It is more like an instructional book or a track. The letter lacked an “epistolary beginning or ending” (Smith, Moody: 1990: 9). More still, the author does not make himself known, no salutation. Thus, 1John is not cast as in the normal letter format. However, since it belongs together with 2nd and 3rd John which are more like epistles, in the scholarly modus loquendi, all three are referred to as epistles of John.

1.2 Purpose Of 1John

The use of the word κοινωνία in the first epistle of John geminates from the author’s intention for putting down this epistle. There is an important message he wishes to communicate and locates it within the frame work of this word. Then, he uses it to drive home his purpose for writing. It is based on this conception that we will look into the purpose of this very first epistle of John so as to underscore why κοινωνία is very significant to John in this writing.

2. MEANING OF THE TERM “ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ”

Κοινωνία is a Greek word that evolves from the verb κοινωνεω, and the root word is “κοινος” – an ancient Greek prefix to which the remaining parts when added we get such word as “κοινονος”. This means communion, intercourse, fellowship. Notably, it is still associated to the Greek, “κοινε” – common. Its meaning extends to, to communicate and share in the same realities (properties or even problems) with another person. Κοινωνία is different from the Latin societas. Societas refers to an agreement and means a partnership. Κοινωνία is an intimate relationship, an internal affinity and likeness. This is also the reason why this same word is used in the Christian era by the Orthodox Church to name the Holy Communion (Haghia κοινωνια), participation to the Gifts of Christ. (http://www.ellopos.net/mail/koinonia.html, visited 20th December, 2010).

κοινωνία is a principle applied to deep communal sharing. It means “a sharer” in the sense of to share with one another in a possession held in common. It implies the spirit of generous sharing or the act of giving as contrasted with selfish getting. In classical, Greek, κοινωνείν from which κοινωνία is extended, has wider nuances. It could imply, “to have a share in a thing,” as when tow or more people hold all things in common. It could mean “going shares” with others, thereby having “business dealings,” such as joint ownership of a ship. It could also imply “sharing an opinion” with someone, and therefore agreeing with the person, or disagreeing in a congenial way. Participation is vital because vital as the members are sharing in what others have. What is shared, received or given becomes the common ground through which κοινωνία becomes real. Coherently, when κοινωνία is present, the spirit of sharing and giving become tangible.

A stunning passage that demonstrates this principle is the opening section of John’s first general letter (1 John 1).

2.1 Κοινωνια In The New Testament

Before we look into the theological reflection of John on the word “κοινωνια”, it is also significant to understand that this word appears in other passages of the New Testament apart from the Johannine epistles. The first occurrence of this word in the New Testament is in Acts 2; 42 which states, “they kept their attention on the teaching of the Apostles and were united together in the breaking of bread and in prayer.” This togetherness is the fellowship. Christ fellowship is a key aspect of the Christian life. In a special way, in Acts, κοινωνία describes the communion that existed at the Lord’s supper because it is in the breaking of bread that the Apostles recognize Christ. Also it was in this breaking of bread that they share in the passion of Christ. This is to commune with the risen Lord. This explains why in 1Corinthians 10, 16, the word “communion” is used to refer to the Greek κοινωνία.

In the Pauline epistles, κοινωνία was used in the sense of sharing material goods in a missionary partnership or sharing its blessing (1 Cor.9:23). It was expanded to the divine “fellowship” of the spirit (2 Cor. 13:13). The term may have been used among the missionaries of the Johannine community. This verse makes the purpose of writing the seuving of κοινωνία between the author and audiences so that they can enter into salvation, the κοινωνία shared with the Father and Son. According to Brown Raymond and his co-editors (1968: 989), to Other expressions are more frequently used in the Johannine writings to express this relationship between believers and God such as “to have God” (1 Jn 2:5, 5:20); to “remain” or “abide” in God or God in the Christian (eg. 1Jn. 2:6, 24, 3:24) or “to have God” or “the Son” (1Jn. 2:23;5:12).

3. THEOLOGY OF USE OF ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ IN 1JOHN

Following the trend of John’s writings, one discovers that he is not just writing series of sequential historical account but he is in fact presenting a theological refection. In the fourth Gospel, he begins with the imagery of logos and uses this ordinary Greek terminology to drive home his understanding of the person of Christ. This same kind of theological undertone flows into the epistles of John. It is in this light that he extracts the word “κοινωνια” and builds a rich theological reflection around it in connection to Christian life as followers of Christ. This question of fellowship erupts from the attitude of the members of the community of John. The trouble which First John seeks to combat did not come from men out to destroy the Christian faith but from men who thought they were improving it. It came from men whose aim was to make Christianity intellectually respectable. Amongst these were the Gnostics and the Christian Jews who thought salvation is only for them. Following their doctrine, the Gnostics denied the humanity of Christ and thus segregated against other members of the Christian community since for them, these are not enlightened, thus domed. This action of both the Gnostics in the Christian fold and the Jews “produced a spiritual aristocracy who looked with contempt and even hatred on lesser men”. This modus operandi is against the spirit of “brotherhood” which Christ preached and lived. This was what accounts for the strong move towards exposing this question of fellowship by john. His objective is to demonstrate that it is by showing love to the members of the community that one can lay claim to knowledge of God, who is love in himself.

3.1 Κοινωνία With God And Christ

John begins this theology of κοινωνία from the ordinary understanding. Κοινωνία or fellowship may be understood as communion, participation, or partnership, “to share with someone in something”, but it is set out here as the goal of the proclamation of the Gospel. This κοινωνια of 1John is indeed a favourite term to describe the living bond in which the Christian stands. It is also both vertical and horizontal – with God and among people respectively. In John’s writings, God is frequently perceived as Father. This is also a reflection of Jesus’ own teaching in the synoptic Gospels. There is always a display of Father-Son relationship between God and Jesus Christ in the Joannine writings. This relationship is transposed and shared by believers. It is this relationship that one may call “κοινωνία”, (fellowship), but it can also be spoken of in other ways, particularly in terms of abiding in God or Jesus (1Jn.2: 6, 10). There is a mutual indwelling among Father (God), the Son (Jesus Christ) and the believers that constitutes their fellowship. In this relation then, to be a Christian is to have fellowships with God. This fellowship, as depicted earlier, is with the Father and the Son (1Jn. 1:3, 6). It ensues in the brotherly fellowship of believers (1Jn. 1:3, 7). The believers’ communion with God or Christ consists in mutual engraftment, which begins in this world but also has eschatological goal since it is in the world to-come that it finds its supreme fulfillment (1Jn. 3:2). This κοινωνία, for John, has a Christological origin, since it is only possible through the son (1Jn. 2,23, 5;12,20) (Grehard Kittel: 1965: 808). In all these reflections, it is obvious that the various expressions for κοινωνία with God point to a reciprocal relationship between the believing community and God. “Abiding in” can be understood as the Johannine expression of the covenant relationship applied to the Christian community. Notwithstanding that Jesus displays this question of κοινωνία in the prayer “…that they may be one….” (17,21; 23; 10,16), the rich concept of κοινωνία still belongs to 1John and distinguishes it in the New Testament (Moody, Smith: 1990: 38).

3.2 Κοινωνία And The Light

The sixth verse of chapter one of 1John begins and the discussion takes a decidedly ethical and even practical turn. There was a continuation of the imagery of darkness but along the line the idea of fellowship was reintroduced. Through this means, John makes a necessary connection between fellowship and light. For him then, “the claim to have fellowship with him (in this case, apparently God, although it could be Christ), is invalidated if one continues to walk in darkness and does not live according to the truth” (Moody, Smith: 1990: 43). Invariably, it is the man who loves his brother who is in the light (1Jn.2:9-11). In this case, to proof that one has transposed from darkness into light is the fact of one’s love for one’s brothers or sisters (members of the one’s community, as in the John’s case).

3.3 Κοινωνια In The Community Of The Faithful

John also reflects on this fellowship in the light of love. 1John 3, 14 demonstrates that life is connected with love of one another, and this word of life also includes the commandment of love, which is the message heard from the beginning (2,7-11; 3,11). Analyzing the above conception David Rensberger (1997: 49), reflects that this Word is Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God’s love. Automatically, it is those who share in the mutual love of the true Christian community, marked by its continuing with the revelation of God as love in the incarnation of Jesus, who truly love and know God). This is the epicenter of Christian fellowship because this fellowship does not just take place within an individual but with the community of believers.

John maintains that “God is love” (1Jn. 4, 17 ) and light. If this is the case, then those who have fellowship with God who is love, cannot be other than God is. It is at this point that John shifts from fellowship with God to fellowship with one another (1Jn. 1:6,7). Fellowship with one another may be another way of speaking about love, so that imitating God in light and love brings about fellowship both with God and with one another. In other words, fellowship with God is not a private relationship but involves joining with others in shared tradition and in love. “We can walk in the light only when we walk with others whom we can love and with whom we can learn of God” (David Rensberger: 1997: 52 & 53). The κοινωνία understood in the light of Christian love also has strong connection with doing. Fellowship is never passive in the meaning of κοινωνια. It is always linked to action, not just being together, but also doing together. With fellowship comes a close and intimate relationship embracing ideas, communication, and frankness, as in a true, blessed interdependent friendship among multiple group members.

The fellowship John meant in this epistle has a basic mode of a regular, non-disjointed triangular frame. At the apex vertical point of this triangle is the divine – God; at one of the bases, is the individual and at the other base are the other members of the community. At the center of this triangle is love which radiates from the apex – God in the person of Christ – logos (according to John). John emphasizes that since each individual member of the community share in this love, each ought to relate fraternally to other members of the community because the totality of this triangle of relation is κοινωνία. The implication of this is that fellowship is impossible outside the community; that is, there is no individual or personal κοινωνία. It is always κοινωνία in a community. In sum, it is in love that fellowship takes place in the community and this fellowship is an indication that we are walking in the light; since God is both love and light, then walking in light is evidence of knowledge is evidence of God.

4. EVALUATION

We recognize that the word “κοινωνια” in 1John has various levels: the individuals’ level, as relationship, community, divine level that leads to the eschatological. Since the word, κοινωνία is totally absent from John (fourth Gospel), its appearance four times in 1John (Jn.1:3-7) is noteworthy. The application of fellowship language to God, which occurs only here have originated with the opponents (1Jn.1:6). Coherently, John’s invitation to fellowship implies an invitation that separates the opponents. Since they put themselves outside the tradition of witness to the incarnation, and invariably moved away from the light of love, the opponents have cut themselves off from the partnership of Johannine community and also κοινωνία with God. Those outside the true partnership and fellowship with God and believers are in (false) communion with the secular world. This communion with the secular world is a communion of emptiness. Its ideas are false and its promises are not true. At the end of the secular world lies only death – from which no idea will save us.

Only one thing further one would like to add, and that is this: when once you have tasted true fellowship with another human being in Christ, you know there is no going back to mere play-acting and church protocol, no more pretending that “all is as it should be.” Instead, you want to do everything that accords with that fellowship, and you want to do nothing that endangers it. We may ask, why? Because in that real, undiluted fellowship, Jesus Christ is no longer a mere idea (if he ever was an idea), but he is the risen and present Lord who mediates between man and man in such a way that men can truly be of one will, heart and mind. This fellowship is the miracle of the incarnate Body of Christ, what the institutional Church is at least an icon of, though by the prayer of Christ, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:21 NIV). In the face of such fellowship, humanity’s deepest fear of betrayal is exterminated.

Furthermore, the Greek phrase for “our joy” doesn't connote simply himself, his co-authors and the assembly of the believers of his day. It is an extremely plural second person inclusion meaning “our collective joy” – Peter, James, John, and the other eight, The Seventy, The First Century Church, The Seven Churches, The Father, The Son, you, me and everyone. “Our joy may be made full” in the Ancient Greek language has not yet been fully translated into English. This expansion of context comes from the true meaning of an Ancient Greek word translated into English as “fellowship” – κοινωνία.

Modern usage of the word fellowship especially in a Church setting has been reduced to getting together once or twice a week to listen to someone preach and then maybe have a little meal together in a fellowship hall. This meaning is nowhere close to κοινωνία in the context of communion and oneness as projected by John in the above displayed epistle. In this relation, the idea of community denotes a “common unity” of purpose and interests. By engaging in this united relationship a new level of consciousness and conscience emerges that spurs the group to higher order thinking and action, thus empowering and encouraging its members to exist in a mutually beneficial relationship. Both fellowship and community imply an inner and outer unity. No where in the framework of community is their implied a hierarchy of command and control. Where there is leadership in the Johannine community, this epistle would be enjoining him to focus on building the community into a core family where emphasis on imposition is negligible since everyone is in divine partnership with each other.

5. CONCLUSION

From the above exposition, one is now enable to state clearly what this Greek word, “κοινωνία” means, how John applies it to his first epistle, and why he does so. It is also lucid to us that John is not very much interested in projecting a mere sequential historical fact as he is interested in a theological understanding of the divine and Christological elements in events. This accounts for his use of such words as “κοινωνία” to achieve his aim.

In the normal Greek academic circuit, κοινωνία would be perceived with a usual scholarly telescope as we have presented above, in the epistle of John the word is taken to another level of interpretation and meaning. Just as in the use of the Greek word logos, which John extracts and uses it to explain his theology of the incarnation of the Son of God, he (John) does a similar theological reflection with the Greek, κοινωνία. The word, as we have seen is regular or ordinary Greek terminology which is interpreted as fellowship but John picks it from this meaning and gives it a theological undertone in the light of the Christian belief. The word, for John acquires a religious and eschatological energy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Raymond (ed), (1968) The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall Inc.

Kittel, Grehard (ed), (1965) Theological Dictionary of New Testament: vol III,
Michigan: W.M.B Eerdmans Publishing Company,

Rensberger, David (1997) Abingdon New Testament Commentaries: 1Jn, 2Jn, 3Jn,
Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Smith, Moody D., (1990) Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and
Preaching, First, Second and Third John, Louisville: John Knox press.


http://www.ellopos.net/mail/koinonia.html, visited 20th December, 2010