What is a fellowship?

[Proctor]

What is a fellow ship?

Is it a fraternal order, like Knights of the Round Table, or Knights Templars or Kabalists?

Or is a fellowship just an ingroup like a support group to advise and discuss daily affairs that might bother its participants?

 

[Aibrean]

It's hard to say without knowing the context of the word.

 

[heymikey80]

What is a fellow ship?

Is it a fraternal order, like Knights of the Round Table, or Knights Templars or Kabalists?

Or is a fellowship just an ingroup like a support group to advise and discuss daily affairs that might bother its participants?

With Aibrean I'm also grasping a bit to understand what question's being asked. So this may fall wide of the mark.

In Greek -- that is, in the Bible -- a "fellowship" is actually often a translation of the word "communion" -- a "group-in-common-union" with one another.

This is not the Lord's Supper, but a deep common bond all Christians have with one another. So it's much deeper than "fellowship" the word, might indicate today. But it's not a secret or hidden communion like fraternal orders.

Acts states that the communion of the first church had individuals giving sacrificially to the church so that everyone would benefit; that Christians would go out of their way at great risk to their lives to help other people; and Paul says that he publicly announced Jesus' Resurrection and evangelized people (a punishable offense) in the event that he would have communion with newfound believers.

 

[Proctor]

I take it then, that a christian fellowship would be an ingroup of christians much like this forum?

 

[heymikey80]

Um, maybe. Again, because it's built on a redemptive principle, it's people who are in the process of being redeemed that would be "in" the group. Therefore it's not specifically people who have "reached a certain bar", but who have turned in a direction toward Christ.

In the First Century often Christians are called "students" (that's the term translated "disciples").

Now, that's not to say that Christian fellowships are all built on this principle. Far more often, western and English Christian fellowships are actually built around John Locke's view instead of Jesus Christ's view of this fellowship. You can read about that in John Locke's A Letter Concerning Religious Toleration. Frankly, Locke thinks of Christians as collecting and dividing around religious views, and adhering and shifting among groups based on what they believe religiously. Jesus' principle was congregating people based on Who they relied on -- Jesus -- and then growing among one another on other issues as subordinate.

It's easier for human beings to congregate around Locke's viewpoint. They come to serious conflict much less often. But they're not often exposed to real people representing other sides of Christianity.

 

[parsley]

Sometimes we use the word very generally. For instance, a church is a fellowship but some people are more involved in home churches, so it's broader to say "your fellowship."

Group of people meeting for the same purpose.

It's also a verb. The main idea is that people are not just filling seats to hear a speaker, but interacting towards a common aim.

A fellowship group might ...
-Pray together
-Study the Bible together
-Do service projects in the community
-Talk about a topic or book
-Eat meals
-Play games and mixers

They operate under the premise that we are living to glorify God, so it is easy to ask someone for prayer in the middle of 18 holes, or talk about what God has been teaching them lately, or ask each other ways to manage family issues without offending God and man. Dwelling in unity and common purpose.