Jan 13 2008
koinonia
We began a fun new series at Mountain today. It is entitled “Kappa Delta Pi:God’s Frat Party.” It is a fun opportunity to re-examine the core values of our community. Each letter is the first letter of a different Greek word.
This week we examined koinonia. Koinonia is the great word used to describe the deep fellowship that God intends for the church. The whole service was a great reminder of the importance of relationships, both with God and with others. You can check out the sermon here.
Ben began his argument by drawing our attention to Jesus articulation of the greatest commandments: Love God, Love Neighbor. This pair of commands (which inspired the title for the fine blog Jesus Creed) outline the ethic of Christians, and articulate the shape of Christian relationships.
I hope to have more to right about this later, but for now, I cannot resist the opportunity to mention Eph 2. In the chapter, Paul is trying to outline what God was made possible through Jesus. It is such a clear and powerful articulation of God’s work both to restore us in relationship to God, and restoring human relationships.
When we reduce Jesus work to just “forgiving sins” and forget that this is part of a larger process of restoring and recreating relationships, we short-change the work that God is trying to do. So I am glad for the sermon today. It is not some side topic, or some nice extra. Christian community is one of the core purposes for which Christ came and so when we invest in God honoring relationship we are honoring the very mission and ministry of Christ. When I build into Christian unity, I am working on the very task for which Christ died.
I like Jesus style. He gives a command - Love God and love your neighbor - and then he dies so that we are able to keep it. So when we build into koinonia, we obey Christ’s command and honor his death.
on the walk
-Ethan
