Sharing in Common
An In-Depth Study of the New Testament Fellowship Words — κοινωνέω, κοινωνία, κοινωνός, μετοχή, and συγκοινωνέω

Executive Summary

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

A Note on Sources

Bibliography

Executive Summary

The New Testament has a family of words for the shared life of believers. This study examines five of them: κοινωνέω (“to share, to participate, to contribute”), κοινωνία (“fellowship, participation, communion, contribution”), κοινωνός (“sharer, partner, partaker”), μετοχή (“partnership”), and συγκοινωνέω (“to share together with”). All but μετοχή grow from the root κοινός, “common.” Taken together, they show what the Bible means by fellowship: not pleasant company, but a real sharing in a common life.

The study reaches six conclusions.

1. Fellowship is participation. The word group describes a genuine sharing in something held in common: Christ, His Spirit, His sufferings, His Table, the gospel, or a brother’s need (1 Corinthians 1:9; 10:16; Philippians 3:10).
2. Fellowship runs in two directions at once. Believers share in God and therefore with one another, and Scripture never lets the two come apart (1 John 1:3, 7).
3. Fellowship is tangible. The same word that names communion with the Holy Spirit names a gift of money for the poor (2 Corinthians 8:4; 9:13; 13:14). Generosity is one of fellowship’s plainest forms.
4. Believers are partners in a common work. The κοινωνός is a business partner, a co-worker, and a fellow sharer in suffering and in glory (Luke 5:10; 2 Corinthians 8:23; 1 Peter 5:1).
5. Fellowship has a boundary. Because to share is to be bound to what one shares, believers must not share in sin, darkness, or the idol’s table, and must not enter partnerships that yoke them to unbelief (2 Corinthians 6:14–16; Ephesians 5:11).
6. Fellowship is costly. To share in a brother’s distress or in Christ’s sufferings is part of the same life as sharing in His comfort (Philippians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 1:7).

The study is arranged in five word studies. Each gives the significance of the term, how it is used in Scripture with every passage quoted in full from the New King James Version, exegetical observations, implications for the local church framed as Align and Adjust, and a block of ten questions for reflection and discussion. A summary of the word group, a note on sources, and a three-tier bibliography follow. It is Study 3 of the ten-study series on the church in the Epistles, and it supplies the vocabulary for Study 4, The Fellowship of the Saints.

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.

Exegetical Observations

1. Two directions in one verb. κοινωνέω can mean “to share in” something (to receive a part of it) or “to share with” someone (to give a part to them). Romans 15:27 shows both in one sentence: “if the Gentiles have been partakers (ἐκοινώνησαν) of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things.” Receiving and giving are two sides of the same fellowship. Those who have shared in the blessings of others owe a share in return.
2. Sharing the needs themselves. Romans 12:13 reads literally “sharing in the needs of the saints” (ταῖς χρείαις τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες). Believers do not only send help from a distance; they take a share in the need as though it were their own. The NKJV’s “distributing to the needs” gives the practical result of that sharing.
3. Teaching creates a partnership. In Galatians 6:6 the one “who is taught the word” is to “share in all good things with him who teaches.” The teacher shares the word, and the learner shares “all good things” in return. The relationship is not a transaction but a mutual partnership in which each gives what he has.
4. Bookkeeping language for a gospel partnership. In Philippians 4:15 Paul says that “no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only.” The phrase εἰς λόγον δόσεως καὶ λήμψεως uses the language of accounts and ledgers, “in an account of giving and receiving.” Paul borrows the terms of business to describe a fellowship that was as real and as regular as a partnership with books to keep.[2]
5. Christ shared our flesh. Hebrews 2:14 uses two different verbs. The children “have partaken” (κεκοινώνηκεν, a perfect of κοινωνέω) of flesh and blood, and Christ “Himself likewise shared (μετέσχεν, from μετέχω) in the same.” The two verbs are close in meaning, and the verse ties together this study’s main word and the word behind μετοχή. The incarnation is the ground of all Christian sharing: the Son took a share in our nature so that we might share in His life.
6. Sharing can bind to evil. The verb is used of sharing in the wrong things as well as the right ones. Timothy is told not to “share in other people’s sins” (1 Timothy 5:22), and John warns that “he who greets” a false teacher “shares in his evil deeds” (2 John 11). By contrast, believers are to “rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13). What one shares in, one is joined to, for good or for ill.

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

1. 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?
2. What does it say about our understanding of the body when one member has abundance and another has unmet need, and no sharing occurs?
3. 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

1. 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?
2. What would it look like, practically, for us to “share in all good things” with those who teach us (Galatians 6:6)?
3. 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

1. Trace the two directions inside κοινωνέω — partaking and contributing. What is lost when a church emphasizes one and neglects the other?
2. 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?
3. 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.[3] 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,

Exegetical Observations

1. Fellowship “of” the Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 13:14 the phrase “the communion of the Holy Spirit” can be read as the fellowship the Spirit creates among believers, or as believers’ participation in the Spirit Himself. The Greek genitive allows both, and many commentators hold that both are in view. The grace of Christ and the love of God, named in the same verse, come to believers through their common share in the Spirit, and that same Spirit binds them to one another.[4]
2. “The fellowship” in Acts 2:42. Luke uses the article: the believers continued steadfastly in “the apostles’ doctrine and the fellowship” (τῇ κοινωνίᾳ). It was something definite and recognizable. The context suggests that it included their common life and their sharing of goods, for “all who believed were together, and had all things in common (κοινά)” (2:44), which uses the root word of the whole group.
3. A handshake of partnership. In Galatians 2:9 James, Cephas, and John “gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship.” The gesture marked a formal agreement: Paul and Barnabas would go to the Gentiles and the others to the circumcised. Fellowship here includes a division of labor within one shared mission, and it comes with one request, “that we should remember the poor” (2:10).
4. The collection is called fellowship. In 2 Corinthians 8:4 the Macedonians begged “that we would receive the gift and the fellowship (κοινωνία) of the ministering to the saints.” In 9:13 Paul speaks of “your liberal sharing” (ἁπλότητι τῆς κοινωνίας) with the saints. In Romans 15:26 the same offering is called “a certain contribution” (κοινωνίαν τινά). The word that names communion with God also names a gift of money for the poor. The New Testament does not separate the two.
5. Fellowship in suffering. Paul’s desire to know “the fellowship of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10) uses the same word. The shared life of believers is not only a sharing of blessings. It includes a share in what Christ suffered, and Paul places it beside “the power of His resurrection,” as if the two came together.
6. “The sharing of your faith.” Philemon 6 is one of the harder verses in Paul. Some read “the sharing (κοινωνία) of your faith” as Philemon’s telling of the gospel to others; many recent commentators read it as the generosity and partnership that come from his faith, which Paul hopes will become “effective” in his welcome of Onesimus. The context of the letter, which asks Philemon to receive Onesimus as a partner would be received (v. 17), favors the second reading, but both are held by careful interpreters.[5]

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

1. If my fellowship with other believers flows from my fellowship with God, what does the quality of the first reveal about the second?
2. 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?
3. 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

1. 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?
2. Where does our congregation experience genuine “fellowship in the gospel” (Philippians 1:5), and where is our fellowship mostly social?
3. How might reframing our giving as fellowship rather than donation change the way we practice it?

Analysis Questions

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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.[6] 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.

Exegetical Observations

1. A word from ordinary business. In Luke 5 the fishermen call to their “partners in the other boat” (5:7), and James and John are “partners with Simon” (5:10). Luke uses two words: μέτοχοι in verse 7 and κοινωνοί in verse 10. Both describe partners in a family fishing business. The New Testament takes a word from the docks and the marketplace and uses it for the shared life of the church.
2. Partner and fellow worker. Paul calls Titus “my partner and fellow worker concerning you” (2 Corinthians 8:23). The two terms (κοινωνὸς ἐμὸς καὶ συνεργός) describe a partner in a common cause and a colleague in common labor. Partnership in the church is not only shared enjoyment but shared work.
3. Partnership as a ground for welcome. “If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me” (Philemon 17). Paul builds his whole appeal on partnership. Because Philemon and Paul are partners, Philemon is to receive Onesimus, the runaway slave who has become a brother, as he would receive Paul himself. Partnership in Christ changes how members treat one another, even across the deepest social divisions.
4. Partakers of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:4 says that believers have become “partakers (κοινωνοί) of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Evangelical interpreters take this not as a sharing in God’s being or essence but as a sharing in His moral character through the promises, so that believers become like Him in holiness. The verse names the goal of salvation as likeness to God, and its context goes on to list the virtues that flow from that sharing (1:5–7).[7]
5. Tables create partnerships. In 1 Corinthians 10:18 those who eat the sacrifices are “partakers (κοινωνοί) of the altar,” and in 10:20 Paul says, “I do not want you to have fellowship with demons,” warning against idol feasts. The meal joins the eaters to what the meal honors. This is why the Lord’s Table and the table of demons cannot both be shared.
6. Partners in glory to come. Peter calls himself “a partaker of the glory that will be revealed” (1 Peter 5:1). The partnership of believers looks forward as well as back. Those who now share in Christ’s sufferings will share in His glory, and Peter writes as a fellow partner, not as a superior.

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

1. If I truly saw other members as partners in a shared enterprise, how would my level of investment and accountability change?
2. What does it do to my self-understanding to be told I am a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)?
3. 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

1. What is the practical difference between a church of attenders and a church of partners, and where do we sit on that spectrum?
2. Paul told Philemon to receive Onesimus “as you would me.” Who in our fellowship is hard to receive that way, and why?
3. 2 Corinthians 1:7 ties partaking in comfort to partaking in suffering. How well do we actually share one another’s sufferings?

Analysis Questions

1. 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”?
2. 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?
3. 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.”[8] 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.

Exegetical Observations

1. A word used once. μετοχή occurs only in 2 Corinthians 6:14 in the New Testament. Its meaning is clear from its root, μετέχω, “to have a share in,” and from its partner in the same verse, κοινωνία. Paul uses a rare word to say a common thing: there are partnerships a believer must not enter.
2. Five questions, five nouns. In 2 Corinthians 6:14–16 Paul asks five questions, each with a different noun for partnership. What “fellowship” (μετοχή) has righteousness with lawlessness? What “communion” (κοινωνία) has light with darkness? What “accord” (συμφώνησις) has Christ with Belial? What “part” (μερίς) has a believer with an unbeliever? What “agreement” (συγκατάθεσις) has the temple of God with idols? The piling up of words shows how seriously Paul takes the boundary.[9]
3. The unequal yoke. The verb “be unequally yoked” (ἑτεροζυγέω) also occurs only here. It recalls the law that forbade plowing with an ox and a donkey together (Deuteronomy 22:10) and breeding different kinds of animals together (Leviticus 19:19). Two animals of different kinds pulling one plow will not pull straight. Paul applies the picture to a believer bound in close partnership with an unbeliever.
4. The scope of the command. The command is often applied to marriage, and rightly so, but the context is wider. Paul’s closing question concerns “the temple of God” and “idols” (6:16), and he goes on to quote Isaiah 52:11, “Come out from among them and be separate.” Evangelical interpreters generally apply the passage to any binding partnership that would draw a believer into compromise with idolatry or unbelief, while noting that Paul elsewhere expects believers to live among unbelievers and even remain married to them (1 Corinthians 5:9–10; 7:12–13).
5. The same verb at the Table. The verb behind μετοχή is used in 1 Corinthians 10:17 and 10:21: “we all partake (μετέχομεν) of that one bread,” and “You cannot partake (μετέχειν) of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.” The same capacity for sharing that unites believers at the Lord’s Table makes some other partnerships impossible. The boundary exists because the fellowship is real.

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

1. If fellowship is real participation, why must it have limits — and how do I hold both open-hearted love and clear boundaries at once?
2. Where is the line, in my own life, between loving unbelievers freely and being wrongly “yoked” to them?
3. What does it reveal about a person or a church when its “fellowship” has no boundaries at all?

Discussion Questions

1. Paul stacks μετοχή and κοινωνία as near-synonyms for emphasis. What is the effect of the four rhetorical questions in 2 Corinthians 6:14?
2. Where do believers today most often become “unequally yoked” without realizing it?
3. How can a congregation practice this boundary without becoming cold, suspicious, or withdrawn?

Analysis Questions

1. 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?
2. Distinguish the kind of association Paul forbids here from the contact with outsiders he assumes elsewhere. What marks the difference?
3. 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.”[10] 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.”

Exegetical Observations

1. Sharing intensified. The prefix σύν, “with,” added to κοινωνέω, makes the sense “to share together with.” It stresses that the sharing is done in company, alongside another. The word is used only three times in the New Testament, and each time the companions matter.
2. A gift as a share in suffering. In Philippians 4:14 Paul says, “you have done well that you shared in my distress.” The gift the Philippians sent to Paul in prison is described not as charity but as taking a share in his affliction (θλῖψις). Giving to those who suffer for the gospel is a way of suffering with them.
3. No fellowship with darkness. Ephesians 5:11 commands, “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” The works of darkness are called “unfruitful,” the opposite of the fruit of the light named in 5:9. Believers are not to share in them, and they are to “expose” (ἐλέγχετε) them, bringing them into the light where they can be seen for what they are.
4. Come out of her. In Revelation 18:4 a voice from heaven calls, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.” The call echoes the prophets’ summons to leave Babylon (Isaiah 52:11; Jeremiah 51:45). To share in Babylon’s sins is to share in her judgment. The same book calls John the readers’ “brother and companion (συγκοινωνός) in the tribulation” (Revelation 1:9), using the related noun for the right kind of sharing.
5. One capacity, two directions. Across the three uses, the word points both toward the good (sharing a brother’s distress) and away from evil (sharing in darkness and in Babylon’s sins). The capacity to share is given by God. The question for the believer is not whether he will share but what he will share in.

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

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. What does the “togetherness” of this word add to my understanding of both comfort and complicity?

Discussion Questions

1. When have you seen someone truly “share in the distress” of another, as the Philippians did with Paul? What did it require?
2. 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?
3. Revelation 18:4 calls God’s people to “come out.” Are there settings today from which faithfulness requires a real withdrawal?

Analysis Questions

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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.

Bibliography

Directly Retrieved/Verified This Session

None in preparing this edition. The reference works named in the Note on Sources (Strong’s Concordance, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, and Vine’s Expository Dictionary) were used in the original preparation of the five word studies and are cited by entry in the notes. The exegetical observations added in this edition were written from general knowledge, and their notes say so.

Located Only Through Secondary Summary

None.

Not Directly Consulted This Session

Strong, James. The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1890.

Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. New York: American Book Company, 1889.

Vine, W. E. An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. 4 vols. London: Oliphants, 1939–1941.

Danker, Frederick W., ed. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG). 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Kittel, Gerhard, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–1976.

Silva, Moisés, ed. New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014.

Nestle, Eberhard, and Kurt Aland, eds. Novum Testamentum Graece. 28th ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012.

Fee, Gordon D. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Moo, Douglas J. The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

Schreiner, Thomas R. 1, 2 Peter, Jude. New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2003.

Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The quotations should be verified against the printed text before use in teaching.

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[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] That λόγος δόσεως καὶ λήμψεως in Philippians 4:15 is commercial or bookkeeping language is a common observation in the commentaries on Philippians (for example, Gordon D. Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, New International Commentary on the New Testament), given here from general knowledge without page numbers. Confirm before teaching.

[3] 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.

[4] The readings of the genitive in 2 Corinthians 13:14 are summarized from general knowledge of the standard commentaries, without page numbers. Confirm before teaching.

[5] The readings of Philemon 6 are summarized from general knowledge of the standard commentaries on Philemon (for example, Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, Pillar New Testament Commentary), without page numbers. Confirm before teaching.

[6] 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.

[7] The evangelical reading of 2 Peter 1:4 is summarized from general knowledge of the standard commentaries on 2 Peter, without page numbers. Confirm before teaching.

[8] 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.

[9] The glosses for συμφώνησις, μερίς, and συγκατάθεσις are given from general knowledge of Thayer’s entries, not retrieved for this section. Confirm in BDAG before teaching.

[10] 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.