By Peter Amsterdam
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When we think about fellowship, most of us Christians think of getting together with other Christians for a time of prayer, worship, singing, reading the Bible and/or listening to a sermon, talking, eating, and generally interacting in a way that is spiritually edifying and uplifting. While these activities are an important part of Christian fellowship, there is a broader biblical concept of fellowship that provides a deeper understanding of its meaning.
Before the creation of the world, God existed in community as a trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through His Word, God has revealed to us that He is one divine being, one essence, with three self-distinctions or persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but there is only one God. This is a core belief of the Christian faith. The three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—exist eternally in a loving interpersonal relationship.
When God created Adam and Eve, He created them in His own image (Genesis 1:27). They were created as relational beings (Genesis 2:18), and besides their relationship with each other, they enjoyed friendship and communion with God. When they disobeyed God, they were ashamed and hid from Him, and the fellowship they had with Him was broken (Genesis 3:8–10). But despite Adam and Eve’s disobedience and the consequent fall of humankind, God made a way to restore humanity’s fellowship with Him through the life and death of Jesus.
Upon Jesus’ death and resurrection, God changed the nature of the fellowship available to humanity by making His permanent abode in the hearts of those who believe. Jesus taught His disciples that “if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). Fellowship with God is now centered in our personal relationship with Jesus. “You will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:20–21).
Personal relationship with God
The most important aspect of Christian fellowship is our personal relationship or communion with God through His Son, Jesus. The apostle John 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” (1 John 1:3).
The fellowship with God that is available to us as believers will eventually move into a new stage when God dwells with His people.
“I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God’” (Revelation 21:2–3).
A believer’s individual relationship and fellowship with God is what makes Christian fellowship among believers possible; it is the foundation for fellowship among Christians. First, God restores fellowship with us through Jesus’ suffering and dying for us; and as we live our lives in alignment with His Word, fellowship with other believers is made possible. As John wrote: “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7).
Participation in our faith with fellow believers
Besides our fellowship with God, another aspect of fellowship consists of participating in our faith in a variety of ways. The apostle Paul presents the relationship believers have with one another using several Greek words, all of which express the idea of a common participation. The main words he used were from the koinōnia word group. These expressed having something in common with someone and are translated throughout the New Testament with words such as communion, fellowship, close relationship, and participation. The emphasis of these words throughout the New Testament was on participation “in something” rather than the emphasis on “with someone” as it is more commonly used today.
Within the biblical text, the words from the koinōnia word group are generally used as “having a share in” or “giving a share.” We see “having a share in” expressed as being a partner, a partaker, or a sharer—in God’s work, blessings, and even troubles—in numerous verses, such as, “You endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated” (Hebrews 10:32–33.); “I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it” (1 Corinthians 9:23).
As we can see by these and other verses, the broader sense of fellowship has to do with participation in the wide range of the gospel: the blessings, the trials and tribulations, the comfort, and the grace. It’s also about partaking together of the divine nature through the truth God has given, as the Apostle Peter wrote in his epistle. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3–4).
While fellowship includes gathering together with other Christians, it also includes our participation in the gospel, working in some way in Christian outreach. It is partnering with God and others in the Great Commission of sharing the good news with everyone and bringing others to a saving knowledge of Christ and discipleship (Matthew 28:18–20).
The apostle Paul also used koinōnia to describe the unity and bonding that should exist among Christians. When writing about the debate in Jerusalem over whether the Gentiles (non-Jews) had to undergo circumcision to become Christians, Paul said that James, the brother of Jesus, and the apostles Peter and John gave him and Barnabas the “right hand of fellowship” (Galatians 2:9). This signified that while the apostles in Jerusalem would continue their ministry to the Jews, and Paul’s ministry would differ in that he ministered to Gentiles, they remained united as brothers in the faith. This expresses the importance of Christians of all persuasions keeping in unity and fellowship, even when engaged in different ministries or holding to different theological understandings on secondary points of doctrine that are not core to Christian faith.
When taken in the overall context of the meaning of the original Greek, Christian fellowship can be understood as participation in the entire system of faith. It includes our interaction with God and with other Christians and our joint efforts to live out the Great Commission and to be salt and light to the world around us and the culture of our time.
Of course, gathering together with other Christians is an important part of fellowship, but it goes deeper than socializing with other Christians. Spiritual fellowship includes gathering with other Christians to share hearts and to strengthen our faith, to encourage one another about living our lives for God, discuss problems and solutions related to living our discipleship, pray for one another, and seek godly counsel from brothers or sisters. It also includes reading Scripture, praise, prayer, and worship, and celebrating communion together. Such fellowship can happen when a larger group of Christians gather, or when only two or three gather together in His name (Matthew 18:20).
As Donald Whitney wrote: “Whatever the social setting in which fellowship happens, it should involve sharing the life of Christ both in word and deed. As we live like Christ when together, we encourage each other in Christian living. As we talk like Christ about spiritual matters, we also stimulate each other toward godliness.”1
Fellowship with other Christians takes making time for meeting together to share our faith life, our walk with the Lord, our worship and prayer life, and strengthening one another in Christ. As the writer of Hebrews says: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, and let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24–25).
Fellowship begins with cultivating a close relationship with God, which is followed by participation in various aspects of our faith—sharing our blessings with others, and being partners with and gathering together with fellow believers. If we implement these things, we will be modeling our fellowship after the word pictures used to describe the close connection and togetherness that members of the early church possessed. They were called “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19), “the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). As those adopted into God’s family (Galatians 4:4–6), they were to be governed by love, tenderness, compassion, and humility.
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1–4).
Our fellowship with God and others is an important part of living our faith, of bearing fruit in our individual lives and in the lives of others. As members of the body of Christ, as we endeavor to walk in the light, as He is in the light, we will have fuller and deeper fellowship with one another.
Originally published June 2014. Adapted and republished September 2026. Read by John Laurence.
1 Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1991), 241.
