“BOUNDARIES OF FELLOWSHIP”

Seeds found bottled and sealed in the tomb of an Egyptian monarch of the 14th century BC, when planted after the tomb was found in 1922, produced lovely plants despite being bottled-up for over three thousand years, sprouting into the same plants they would have produced if planted three millennia ago. In a similar way, the seed of God’s word (Luke 8:11) will produce Christians only no matter in what age it is preached and taught, if it is taught without adulteration.

There must not be any adulteration of, nor tempering with, the seed. There is to be neither addition nor subtraction from scripture (Deuteronomy 4:2). Tampering with God’s word has serious consequences, as shown in the case of Adam and Eve, the first couple, who were driven out of Eden because they believed Satan’s insistence that they would not die although God said they would (Genesis 2). When Eve related that God had said something that He actually did not (about not touching the fruit (verse 3:3) when only eating it was forbidden), it gave room for Satan to engage Eve with another lie (“… thou shalt not surely die…” (Genesis 3:5). Such is the serious consequence of sin, in this case, lying and not keeping within boundaries of truth.

The Bible is sufficient and no other creed is needed. The boundaries of fellowship have to do with the question of where does fellowship begin and where does it end. According to 2 John 9, It begins and ends with the doctrine of Christ, the scripturally-true teaching about who Jesus was as well as everything which He taught. We do not fellowship with any who are outside the church of Christ, who are unfaithful to the Lord and those who do not continue steadfastly in the doctrines of Christ.

Also, we are not to fellowship unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14-15), those in the world (Ephesians 5:11; James 4:4) nor false teachers (Matthew 7: 15; 1 John 4: 1). Those who are in fellowship with God are those within His Son’s church (Acts 2:41-42). There is no room for “unity in diversity”, as the Great Commission makes Jesus’ disciples responsible for teaching everything that He taught, nothing less, nothing more and nothing different. Christians are to be of one mind, in complete agreement (1 Corinthians 1:10, a consequence of Ephesians 4:4-6)).

Having fellowship requires agreement (Amos 3:3), without giving ground to teachers of error (Galatians 2:4-5). As we do God’s work, we are to be wary of false teachers who seek to distract us (Nehemiah 6:1-4). We are warned, “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13 13).

A good teacher is one who teaches the truth, as did Jesus, who taught with authority so that many were astonished at his teachings (Luke 4: 32), and was bold in his teachings, never apologizing for what he taught (Luke 4: 16-19).

When truth is preached, it is still truth whether the listener agrees or disagrees. When one rejects the truth, the truth does not suffer, but the one who rejects suffers spiritually now and eternally.

On matters of fellowship, God means what He says in His word: “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).

PowerPoint file for use with this lesson

–by Leong Yu Kong

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