Sharing in Common
An In-Depth Study of the New Testament Fellowship Words
κοινωνέω, κοινωνία, κοινωνός, μετοχή, and συγκοινωνέω
A Greek Word-Group Study for Adult Bible Class
Introduction: The Vocabulary of a Shared Life
κοινωνέω (G2841) — To Share, To Participate, To Contribute
κοινωνία (G2842) — Fellowship, Participation, Communion, Contribution
κοινωνός (G2844) — Sharer, Partner, Partaker, Companion
μετοχή (G3352) — Partnership, and Its Limits
συγκοινωνέω (G4790) — To Share Together With
The Overall Picture: A Summary of the Word Group
Introduction: The Vocabulary of a Shared Life
When the New Testament wants to describe the life believers hold together, it reaches most often for a single family of words built on the adjective κοινός (G2839), meaning common — that which is shared by all rather than owned by one. From that root grow the terms this study examines: κοινωνός, the person who shares; κοινωνέω, the act of sharing; and κοινωνία, the shared life itself. A fourth word, μετοχή, comes from a parallel root meaning to partake, and a fifth, συγκοινωνέω, intensifies the family with the prefix σύν (together with).
The English word “fellowship” has grown thin; in common speech it means little more than friendly company. The Greek words mean something far weightier. At their core they denote participation — a real sharing-in some common thing. Believers do not merely enjoy one another’s company; they share in Christ, in His Spirit, in His sufferings, in the gospel, and therefore in one another.
The purpose of this study is practical. Its aim is not merely to define five words but to help believers see clearly what each term calls them to change — what must be adjusted or aligned in the way they live with other Christians. For that reason each term is treated in the same shape: its significance, its full biblical usage (with every passage quoted in the New King James Version and set off in italics), its implications for the local church stated as plain points of adjustment, and a set of questions for reflection. The Greek is a doorway and not a destination; the Strong’s number in parentheses is only a lookup aid.
κοινωνέω (G2841) — To Share, To Participate, To Contribute
Significance
κοινωνέω is the verb of the family — the act of sharing. Derived from κοινωνός (a partner), it means “to come into communion or fellowship with, to become a sharer, be made a partner,” and by extension “to give a share of, to contribute.”[1] Two directions live within the one word: a person may share in something already there (partaking), or share out to another (contributing). To the New Testament mind, receiving a share and giving a share are one act of holding life in common.
How the Term Is Used in Scripture
On the positive side, κοινωνέω describes the believer’s active sharing in the good. Paul commands practical supply as the expression of fellowship:
Romans 12:13 (NKJV): distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
He makes the care of those who teach a shared duty:
Galatians 6:6 (NKJV): Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.
He commends the Philippians as the one church that partnered with him financially:
Philippians 4:15 (NKJV): Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only.
He grounds material generosity in spiritual debt:
Romans 15:27 (NKJV): It pleased them indeed, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things.
The verb reaches even to the highest participations — sharing in Christ’s sufferings, and the Son’s sharing in our nature:
1 Peter 4:13 (NKJV): but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.
Hebrews 2:14 (NKJV): Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
But the verb also has a sober negative use: to share is to become responsible for what one shares in.
1 Timothy 5:22 (NKJV): Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people’s sins; keep yourself pure.
2 John 11 (NKJV): for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
Implications for the Local Church
- Treat your faith as shared property, not private property. To believe is to be made a sharer, so your gifts, time, and resources exist for the body’s needs, not for yourself alone. Align: move from asking “what may I keep?” to “what may I contribute?”
- Make the support of your teachers a settled duty, not an afterthought. Those who feed the congregation the Word are to be provided for by the congregation (Galatians 6:6). Adjust: build the care of teachers and workers into the church’s ordinary life.
- Let generosity be the visible form of your fellowship. Paul measured a church’s partnership partly by its giving (Philippians 4:15; Romans 15:27). Align: count material giving as a spiritual act, not a separate transaction.
- Expect to share in Christ’s sufferings, not only His comforts. Partaking of Christ includes partaking of His reproach (1 Peter 4:13). Adjust: stop treating hardship for Christ as a sign that something has gone wrong.
- Guard what you lend your name, money, and presence to. Because sharing creates responsibility, a believer can be made a partner in evil as truly as in good (1 Timothy 5:22; 2 John 11). Align: examine your participations — what you endorse, fund, or welcome, you share in.
For Reflection and Discussion
Worldview Questions
- If believing makes me a sharer, how does that reshape the way I think about my possessions, my time, and my abilities in relation to other believers?
- What does it say about our understanding of the body when one member has abundance and another has unmet need, and no sharing occurs?
- The same verb covers both receiving a share and giving one. Why might God have joined those two so tightly, and how should that shape our expectations of one another?
Discussion Questions
- Where does our congregation already practice the “distributing to the needs of the saints” of Romans 12:13 well, and where do we fall short?
- What would it look like, practically, for us to “share in all good things” with those who teach us (Galatians 6:6)?
- 1 Timothy 5:22 and 2 John 11 warn that we can share in others’ sins. Where do believers today most easily become unwitting partners in wrong?
Analysis Questions
- Trace the two directions inside κοινωνέω — partaking and contributing. What is lost when a church emphasizes one and neglects the other?
- In Hebrews 2:14 the Son “shared in” flesh and blood so that we might be delivered. How does His sharing set the pattern and the motive for ours?
- Compare the positive uses (Romans 15:27; 1 Peter 4:13) with the negative uses (1 Timothy 5:22; 2 John 11). What single principle unites them?
Personal Evaluation
Where, honestly, am I mainly a receiver of the church’s good things and not yet a contributor to them — and what is one concrete share God is asking me to give?
κοινωνία (G2842) — Fellowship, Participation, Communion, Contribution
Significance
κοινωνία is the central noun and the richest term of the group: “partnership… participation… (social) intercourse… (pecuniary) benefaction,” rendered communion, fellowship, distribution, and contribution.[2] It names the shared life itself — the state of having something in common. Whenever it appears, the right question is not “who is being friendly?” but “what is being shared, and by whom?”
How the Term Is Used in Scripture
The word moves along two axes that Scripture never separates — fellowship with God, and fellowship with one another.
Fellowship with God, Christ, and the Spirit:
1 Corinthians 1:9 (NKJV): God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
2 Corinthians 13:14 (NKJV): The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Philippians 3:10 (NKJV): that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
Fellowship at the Lord’s Table — the deepest corporate expression:
1 Corinthians 10:16 (NKJV): The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
Fellowship with one another, bound inseparably to fellowship with God:
1 John 1:3 (NKJV): that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:7 (NKJV): But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Fellowship as shared practice and mission:
Acts 2:42 (NKJV): And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
Philippians 1:5 (NKJV): for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now,
Galatians 2:9 (NKJV): and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
Philemon 6 (NKJV): that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
Fellowship as material generosity — Paul’s ordinary word for an offering:
2 Corinthians 8:4 (NKJV): imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.
2 Corinthians 9:13 (NKJV): while, through the proof of this ministry, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal sharing with them and all men,
Implications for the Local Church
- Anchor your horizontal fellowship in the vertical. You are joined to other believers because you are first joined to Christ and His Spirit (1 Corinthians 1:9). Align: pursue communion with God as the source of real community, not as a substitute for it.
- Refuse to separate what John joins. A claim to deep fellowship with God that produces no real partnership with God’s people is self-deceived (1 John 1:3, 7). Adjust: test the reality of your walk with God by the reality of your life with the saints.
- Come to the Table as communion, not routine. The Supper is a genuine sharing in the body and blood of Christ that makes many into one loaf (1 Corinthians 10:16). Align: let the Lord’s Supper shape your sense of belonging to one another.
- Count your giving as fellowship. Paul’s word for an offering is the same word he uses for communion with the Spirit (2 Corinthians 8:4; 9:13). Adjust: stop filing generosity under “charity” and file it under “fellowship.”
- Partner in the mission, not only in the meetings. Fellowship “in the gospel” is a shared enterprise, sealed by the right hand of partnership (Philippians 1:5; Galatians 2:9). Align: measure fellowship by shared labor for the gospel, not only by shared gatherings.
For Reflection and Discussion
Worldview Questions
- If my fellowship with other believers flows from my fellowship with God, what does the quality of the first reveal about the second?
- Scripture calls a financial offering “fellowship.” How does that challenge the way I usually think about the relationship between my spiritual life and my money?
- What does it mean for my sense of self that, at the Table, I am made part of one loaf with people I did not choose?
Discussion Questions
- Acts 2:42 lists fellowship alongside doctrine, the breaking of bread, and prayer. What happens to a church when fellowship is treated as optional next to those?
- Where does our congregation experience genuine “fellowship in the gospel” (Philippians 1:5), and where is our fellowship mostly social?
- How might reframing our giving as fellowship rather than donation change the way we practice it?
Analysis Questions
- Trace the vertical and horizontal axes of κοινωνία through 1 John 1:3–7. Why does John make them inseparable, and what error is he guarding against?
- Paul uses κοινωνία for communion with the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14) and for a collection for the poor (2 Corinthians 8:4). What does this single word teach about the unity of the spiritual and the material?
- Compare the “fellowship of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10) with the “communion of the blood of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:16). How do these deepen “fellowship” beyond mere association?
Personal Evaluation
Is my communion with other believers plainly rooted in my communion with God — and which one is God calling me to deepen first?
κοινωνός (G2844) — Sharer, Partner, Partaker, Companion
Significance
If κοινωνία is the shared life, κοινωνός is the person who shares it — “a sharer, an associate,” translated companion, partaker, and partner.[3] It is a relational noun: one is always a κοινωνός of something or with someone. It can describe a business partnership, a shared enterprise, or the most exalted participation imaginable — and it always binds the sharer to the thing shared.
How the Term Is Used in Scripture
At its most ordinary, κοινωνός names working partners:
Luke 5:10 (NKJV): and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.”
Paul lifts that commercial word into gospel partnership:
2 Corinthians 8:23 (NKJV): If anyone inquires about Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker concerning you. Or if our brethren are inquired about, they are messengers of the churches, the glory of Christ.
Philemon 17 (NKJV): If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me.
Believers are partners in suffering, in glory, and — astonishingly — in the divine nature:
2 Corinthians 1:7 (NKJV): And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.
1 Peter 5:1 (NKJV): The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed:
2 Peter 1:4 (NKJV): by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Yet the same noun carries the family’s warning: participation binds the participant to the thing shared.
1 Corinthians 10:18 (NKJV): Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
1 Corinthians 10:20 (NKJV): Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.
Implications for the Local Church
- See fellow members as partners, not fellow attenders. The word carries a commercial weight — partners share risk, labor, and reward in a common enterprise (2 Corinthians 8:23). Align: trade a consumer’s posture (“what do I get?”) for a partner’s posture (“what do we owe this shared work?”).
- Receive one another as you would receive Christ’s own partners. Paul asks Philemon to receive Onesimus “as you would me” because they are partners (Philemon 17). Adjust: extend to fellow believers the welcome you would give to Christ’s closest co-workers.
- Accept that partnership means shared suffering as well as shared comfort. To be a partaker of the consolation is to be a partaker of the sufferings (2 Corinthians 1:7). Align: enter the afflictions of others rather than keeping a safe distance.
- Live in the dignity of being partakers of the divine nature. No higher participation exists (2 Peter 1:4). Adjust: let that identity, not the world’s corruption, govern your conduct with one another.
- Refuse partnerships that bind you to what opposes God. One cannot be a partaker of Christ’s Table and the table of demons (1 Corinthians 10:18–20). Align: recognize that some associations claim an allegiance a believer cannot give.
For Reflection and Discussion
Worldview Questions
- If I truly saw other members as partners in a shared enterprise, how would my level of investment and accountability change?
- What does it do to my self-understanding to be told I am a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)?
- The word teaches that we become bound to whatever we share in. How should that shape the company I keep and the causes I join?
Discussion Questions
- What is the practical difference between a church of attenders and a church of partners, and where do we sit on that spectrum?
- Paul told Philemon to receive Onesimus “as you would me.” Who in our fellowship is hard to receive that way, and why?
- 2 Corinthians 1:7 ties partaking in comfort to partaking in suffering. How well do we actually share one another’s sufferings?
Analysis Questions
- The same noun describes a fishing partnership (Luke 5:10) and partaking of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). What does that range reveal about the seriousness of “sharing”?
- In 1 Corinthians 10, being a “partaker” of the altar is Paul’s argument against idolatry. Reconstruct the logic: why does partaking carry such weight?
- How does the commercial background of κοινωνός (partner, associate) sharpen what the New Testament means by church membership?
Personal Evaluation
Am I functioning as a genuine partner in this congregation’s shared work — invested, accountable, sharing its burdens — or chiefly as a beneficiary of it?
μετοχή (G3352) — Partnership, and Its Limits
Significance
μετοχή stands slightly apart. It comes not from κοινός but from the parallel verb μετέχω (to partake, to have a share in), and it means “a sharing, partnership, fellowship.”[4] It appears only once in the New Testament, where it functions as a near-synonym for κοινωνία — which is precisely why Paul sets the two words side by side. Its single appearance guards the family’s most difficult truth: that fellowship, by its very nature, has a boundary.
How the Term Is Used in Scripture
2 Corinthians 6:14 (NKJV): Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?
Here “fellowship” is μετοχή and “communion” is κοινωνία — the two great sharing-words placed in parallel to press one point: some things cannot share a common life, because their natures are opposed. Righteousness and lawlessness have no partnership; light and darkness have no communion. Paul is not forbidding all contact with unbelievers, but the kind of yoked partnership in which the believer’s allegiance and conduct are bound to what opposes God. The rhetorical questions expect the answer none.
Implications for the Local Church
- Accept that real fellowship has a boundary. Because κοινωνία is genuine participation, it cannot be extended to everything without ceasing to mean anything. Align: let your convictions about whom and what you will partner with be as clear as your convictions about welcome.
- Distinguish loving the world from being yoked to it. Paul assumes ongoing contact with unbelievers elsewhere; here he forbids binding partnership (2 Corinthians 6:14). Adjust: keep the doors of love open while refusing entangling alliances that compromise allegiance to Christ.
- Examine your yokes. A “yoke” is a binding, shared commitment — in marriage, in business, in ministry alliances. Align: weigh whether a proposed partnership would join the light to the darkness.
- Guard the church’s corporate allegiance, not only personal purity. The warning is addressed to a congregation. Adjust: let the body, not only the individual, discern what partnerships it can and cannot enter.
For Reflection and Discussion
Worldview Questions
- If fellowship is real participation, why must it have limits — and how do I hold both open-hearted love and clear boundaries at once?
- Where is the line, in my own life, between loving unbelievers freely and being wrongly “yoked” to them?
- What does it reveal about a person or a church when its “fellowship” has no boundaries at all?
Discussion Questions
- Paul stacks μετοχή and κοινωνία as near-synonyms for emphasis. What is the effect of the four rhetorical questions in 2 Corinthians 6:14?
- Where do believers today most often become “unequally yoked” without realizing it?
- How can a congregation practice this boundary without becoming cold, suspicious, or withdrawn?
Analysis Questions
- Why might Paul reach for a rare word (μετοχή, used only here) and pair it with his usual word (κοινωνία)? What does the pairing accomplish?
- Distinguish the kind of association Paul forbids here from the contact with outsiders he assumes elsewhere. What marks the difference?
- The images are righteousness/lawlessness and light/darkness. Why these pairs, and what do they imply about the nature of the two parties rather than merely their behavior?
Personal Evaluation
Is there a partnership, alliance, or yoke in my life that binds me to what opposes God — and what would faithful obedience to this text require of me?
συγκοινωνέω (G4790) — To Share Together With
Significance
συγκοινωνέω is κοινωνέω intensified by the prefix σύν (together with): “to share in company with, to co-participate.”[5] The prefix underscores the jointness of the action — not merely to share, but to share together with another, entering the very same circumstance. Its three New Testament occurrences show the family’s positive and negative poles in sharpest relief.
How the Term Is Used in Scripture
Positively, it describes the Philippians entering Paul’s hardship as though it were their own:
Philippians 4:14 (NKJV): Nevertheless you have done well that you shared in my distress.
Negatively, the same verb forbids joint participation in evil:
Ephesians 5:11 (NKJV): And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
Revelation 18:4 (NKJV): And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.”
Implications for the Local Church
- Enter one another’s distress rather than observing it. The Philippians did not send detached aid; they co-participated in Paul’s affliction (Philippians 4:14). Align: move from sympathy at a distance to shared burden-bearing.
- Let no member suffer alone. The prefix “together with” makes solidarity personal. Adjust: build the habit of stepping into the hard seasons of others, not merely praying about them from afar.
- Refuse joint participation in the works of darkness. Fellowship with evil is forbidden even by silence; believers are to expose, not share (Ephesians 5:11). Align: stop passively going along with what you should name as wrong.
- Come out from what you must not share in. Where a system or setting is bound up in sin, the call is separation, lest you receive of its consequences (Revelation 18:4). Adjust: be willing to withdraw from what you cannot participate in without guilt.
For Reflection and Discussion
Worldview Questions
- If I am called to share together with my brothers and sisters in their distress, how does that reshape what I think I owe them?
- The same word warns me not to co-participate in evil. How do I discern the difference between engaging the world and sharing in its darkness?
- What does the “togetherness” of this word add to my understanding of both comfort and complicity?
Discussion Questions
- When have you seen someone truly “share in the distress” of another, as the Philippians did with Paul? What did it require?
- Ephesians 5:11 says to expose the works of darkness, not merely avoid them. What makes that hard in practice, and when is it necessary?
- Revelation 18:4 calls God’s people to “come out.” Are there settings today from which faithfulness requires a real withdrawal?
Analysis Questions
- Compare the positive use (Philippians 4:14) with the negative uses (Ephesians 5:11; Revelation 18:4). What does the prefix σύν contribute to each?
- Ephesians 5:11 pairs “have no fellowship” with “rather expose them.” Why are avoidance and exposure joined, and what does that teach about the believer’s stance toward evil?
- How does συγκοινωνέω sharpen the more general κοινωνέω (G2841)? What is gained by the intensified form?
Personal Evaluation
Whose distress am I being called to enter “together with” them right now — and is there any work of darkness I have been quietly sharing in rather than exposing?
The Overall Picture: A Summary of the Word Group
Standing back, the five terms form a single, coherent theology of the shared Christian life.
At the root is κοινός — common. What the gospel creates is a people who hold things in common: one Lord, one Spirit, one salvation, one another. From that root the family unfolds. κοινωνός names the partners; κοινωνέω names the act of sharing; κοινωνία names the shared life itself. μετοχή, from a neighboring root, supplies the boundary, and συγκοινωνέω, with its prefix, supplies the intensity of sharing together with.
Several truths run through the whole group. First, fellowship is participation, not sociability — a real sharing-in a common thing, whether Christ, His Spirit, His sufferings, His Table, the gospel, or a brother’s need. Second, it moves along two axes at once: believers share vertically in God and therefore horizontally with one another, and Scripture never lets the two come apart. Third, it is tangible: the same words that describe communion with the Holy Spirit describe a financial offering for the poor, so that generosity is one of fellowship’s plainest forms. Fourth, it has two poles: the family blesses sharing in Christ and every good thing, and just as firmly warns against sharing in sin, darkness, and the idol’s table — because to participate is to be bound to what one shares. Fifth, it has a boundary: real communion cannot be extended to what opposes God without ceasing to be communion at all.
The purpose of the whole study can be put as a single question of alignment: Am I living as a genuine sharer in the common life of God’s people? That question resolves into the adjustments each term has pressed —
- to hold my faith, gifts, and goods as shared rather than private (κοινωνέω);
- to root my fellowship with believers in real communion with God, and prove it in doctrine, mission, and generosity (κοινωνία);
- to relate to fellow members as partners in a common work, sharing its burdens as well as its blessings (κοινωνός);
- to keep the boundaries that fellowship requires, refusing yokes that bind me to what opposes God (μετοχή);
- and to enter others’ distress together with them, while refusing to share in the works of darkness (συγκοινωνέω).
The whole picture is of a people made one by their common share in Christ, whose life together is a genuine partnership — vertical and horizontal, spiritual and material, comforting and costly — held within the limits set by the One they hold in common. To understand these words is finally to be asked whether our life with other believers actually looks like what they describe.
A Note on Sources
Scripture is quoted from the New King James Version, with each reference given in full. Greek terms appear in the original script; the Strong’s number in parentheses is a lookup aid only, never the source of a definition. Lexical glosses are drawn from standard reference works — Strong’s Concordance, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, and Vine’s Expository Dictionary — and are cited by word (s.v.) rather than page. The relationships among the terms (the shared root κοινός, and μετοχή’s derivation from μετέχω) follow the standard lexica. Definitions or renderings that would benefit from confirmation in BDAG or TDNT are marked accordingly and should be verified against those works before the material is taught. No citation, quotation, or reference in this study has been invented; where a source could not be independently confirmed, the point rests on the biblical text itself.
[1] Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon and Strong’s Concordance, s.v. κοινωνέω (Strong’s #G2841), from κοινωνός (G2844): “to come into communion or fellowship with, to become a sharer, be made a partner,” and “to give a share of, to contribute.” Confirm in BDAG before teaching.
[2] Strong’s Concordance and Vine’s Expository Dictionary, s.v. κοινωνία (Strong’s #G2842), from κοινωνός (G2844): “partnership, i.e., (literally) participation, or (social) intercourse, or (pecuniary) benefaction”; rendered communion, fellowship, contribution, distribution. Confirm in BDAG before teaching.
[3] Strong’s Concordance and Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. κοινωνός (Strong’s #G2844), from κοινός (G2839, “common”): “a sharer, i.e., associate — companion, partaker, partner.” Confirm in BDAG before teaching.
[4] Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. μετοχή (Strong’s #G3352), from μετέχω (G3348, “to partake”): “a sharing, partnership, fellowship”; a hapax legomenon occurring only at 2 Corinthians 6:14, where it stands parallel to κοινωνία. Confirm in BDAG before teaching.
[5] Strong’s Concordance and Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. συγκοινωνέω (Strong’s #G4790), from σύν (G4862, “together with”) and κοινωνέω (G2841): “to share in company with, to co-participate in”; used at Ephesians 5:11, Philippians 4:14, and Revelation 18:4. Confirm in BDAG before teaching.