Koinonia

Koinonia (ˌkɔɪnoʊˈniːə) is a transliterated form of the Greek word κοινωνία, which refers to concepts such as fellowship, joint participation, partnership, the share which one has in anything, a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution. In the Politics of Aristotle it is used to mean a community of any size from a single family to a polis. As a polis, it is the Greek for republic or commonwealth. In later Christianity it identifies the idealized state of fellowship and unity that should exist within the Christian church, the Body of Christ. This usage may have been borrowed from the early Epicureans—as it is used by Epicurus' Principal Doctrines 37–38. The term communion, derived from Latin communio ('sharing in common'), is related. The term "Holy Communion" normally refers to the Christian rite also called the Eucharist. The essential meaning of the koinonia embraces concepts conveyed in the English terms community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy. Koinonia can therefore refer in some contexts to a jointly contributed gift. The word appears 19 times in most editions of the Greek New Testament. In the New American Standard Bible, it is translated "fellowship" twelve times, "sharing" three times, and "participation" and "contribution" twice each. Koinonia appears once in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, in Leviticus 6:2 It is found in 43 verses of the New Testament as a noun (koinōnia 17x, koinōnos 10x, sugkoinōnos 4x), in its adjectival (koinōnikos 1x), or verbal forms (koinōneō 8x, sugkoinōneō 3x) . The word is applied, according to the context, to sharing or fellowship, or people in such relation, with: a divine nature (), God (), the Father and His Son (), Jesus, Son of God (), his sufferings (; ), his future glory (), the Holy Spirit (; ) the blood and the body of Christ (), pagan sacrifices and gods () fellow Christians, their sufferings and the faith (; ; , ; ; ; , ) a source of spiritual favours (), the gospel (), light and darkness () others' sufferings and consolation (; ), their evangelizing work (), their graces or privileges (; ), their material needs, to remedy which assistance is given (, ; , ; ; ; ; ) the evil deeds of others (; ; ; ; ) the bodily human nature all have in common () a work partnership, secular or religious (; ) Of these usages, Bromiley's International Standard Bible Encyclopedia selects as especially significant the following meanings: I.