Week 36—Sunday Psalm 84:5-7
Psalm 84:5-7
THE WORD BECOMING FLESH
IN GROUP MOVEMENTS
We have looked at the Word of the church become flesh in a group—the group at Antioch. We now leap from the ancient world to this modern world and look at another attempt to make the Word of the Kingdom become flesh in a group.
There has been a great growth of group movements in modern days. They are attempts to put back into the church the koinonia, the fellowship of the Acts. I used to think that the church was born out of Pentecost, but the church is not named until the eighth chapter of Acts. It was the koinonia which was born out of the Pentecost, for the koinonia is mentioned in the same chapter with the coming of the Spirit: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship [koinonia], to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). This koinonia was a close-knit fellowship across all racial and class boundaries, transcending age and sex. It was a fellowship of the Spirit. The group became an organism of the Spirit. This group became the soul out of which the body of the church grew; the organism out of which the organization grew. Where you have the koinonia you have the church, but where you do not have the koinonia, there you do not have the church—you have an organization without the organism.
These modern group movements are attempts to put back the koinonia into the church. The church should be that koinonia itself, but it is often, more often than not, an impersonal collection of believers who meet once a week to worship together—hear a sermon. It is not a close-knit fellowship. One of these attempts to produce the koinonia is the Christian Ashram. It came out of India, the word “Ashram” being from the Sanscrit, A = from, and shram = work, a retreat from work. A retreat, a forest school, under a guru, or teacher. We have taken the form and have put a Christian content into it making a Christian Ashram.
O Lord Jesus, we thank you, for the stirrings of the Spirit which are driving us to seek for a fellowship of the Spirit, a fellowship where we find you and our brothers and sisters. And where love reigns. Make us worthy of that koinonia. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “A fellowship of all who love in the service of all who suffer.”