Guest Blogger: Jason Helopoulos
I would contend that many of our disillusions with the church are based upon a wrong ethic. We misunderstand the true nature of fellowship in the gospel community. And therefore, we wrongly apply the ethic of other communities to the church.
The foundation of our fellowship is not the feelings we have for one another, as important as they may be. Neither is the foundation of our fellowship based upon the fact that we live in the same geographic place, educate our children in the same way, hold similar political views, or are the same ethnicity. No. It is the gospel that is the foundation of our fellowship. Nothing else. It is truth rooted and founded in the person and work of Christ that lays the structure, creates the realm, and the reality of our union with one another. The key to understanding biblical fellowship is that it is rooted in a spiritual reality, rather than something that is physical. The basis of our fellowship is spiritual.
Because our bond is spiritual, in Christ, in the gospel, the way we are related to each other is drastically different than any other entity on the face of the earth. Deitrich Bonhoeffer pointed out in his little book, Life Together, that because the Christian community is spiritual there is never any “immediate” relationship between its members. This is unlike every other community. Individuals in the Christian community never have direct contact. We are always related to each other through Christ. …
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