The You're going to Is Fellowship in a local church essential or just a nice way for a diverse group of people to find others with similar interests.

Well, here the answer today on Truth for Life Weekend.

Alistairbegg is teaching from the Book of Acts.

We're looking at Chapter 2 verses 42 through 47.

Now we come to these marks of an effective church and last time having dealt with this matter of teaching we now come this evening to the question of the fellowship, the fellowship.

And the word here, as many of us are very familiar is the word coinonia or

coinonia as we used to say as teenagers and I'm not sure which is the correct

anglic-sized pronunciation but it actually emerges from the root word

which is Koynos and that word simply means common.

The reason it is of such pressing importance is because in the early church

their communal life was one of the great attractions to the pagan world.

The pagan world was not so much attracted by the preaching.

It was attracted by the commonality of these people, part of which commonality was the preaching of the word of God.

Clearly, effective preaching was part of evangelism. It was used in every city

where the church was born and I'm the last one to step back from that as is clear on

multiple levels. Nevertheless, it was the very fulfillment of the words of Jesus in the life of his people that by this will all men know that you are my disciples because of the self-giving love which is characteristic of your

gatherings.

And it was in the fulfillment of that expressed in the developing church that the pagan world was attracted to consider what it was that united

these diverse people, barbarian, Scythians, free people, people from a Jewish background, people from an Athenian

background and so on and they had no real explanation for the commonality of

their existence.

And so it was that God's people devoted themselves,

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