Editorial note: This essay develops the argument about the apostles’ fellowship and the life of Christ. For a more personal treatment addressed to Ray, read Dear Ray: The Fellowship We Have Forsaken.
I believe we have lost sight of something very simple. The apostles had a fellowship, but it was not a fellowship built around the apostles. It was not a ministry, a church system, or a set of teachings that people had to agree with. It was a fellowship of life. It was Zoe. They were living in Christ, and Christ was living in them. That is what they shared. That is what they invited others into. And that is what I believe we must return to.
What Was Their Fellowship?
When John spoke about fellowship, he said their fellowship was with the Father and with His Son. Think about that. The apostles were not asking people to join their organization or become loyal to them. They were speaking about the life they had received. They knew Christ, not merely as someone they had followed, but as the One who now lived within them. They were abiding in Him. That was their fellowship. If I am abiding in Christ, and you are abiding in Christ, we are sharing the same life. We do not need someone to create that fellowship for us. It already exists in Him.
We have made fellowship into something we do. We attend meetings, eat together, pray together, discuss the Bible, and call it fellowship. Those things may be wonderful, but they are not the source of fellowship. We can do every one of them while living entirely from ourselves. Fellowship is not what we arrange. It is the life in which we remain.
Abiding Is Not a Method
Jesus said, ‘Abide in Me.’ He did not give the disciples a program for reaching Him. He did not ask them to become experts at a spiritual practice. He told them to remain in the One who was already their life.
Look at the branch and the vine. The branch does not take a course on producing fruit. It does not struggle to manufacture life. It remains in the vine. The life of the vine becomes the life of the branch, and fruit comes from that life.
Yet we have made abiding into another Christian method. We teach people how to do it, how to improve at it, how to measure it. We have trainings and conferences about the very thing that cannot be produced by training. We keep turning Christ into something we must accomplish. But the life is already in us. The question is whether we are remaining in Him or living from ourselves.
We Can Do Christianity Without Christ as Our Life
This is what troubles me. Almost everything we call Christianity can be done without abiding in Christ. We can preach sermons, build churches, publish books, hold conferences, raise money, and run ministries. We can be successful at all of it through natural human ability.
A gifted speaker can move a crowd. A gifted organizer can build a large ministry. A gifted writer can explain the Scriptures beautifully. None of that proves that Zoe is being lived.
We have learned to admire the things people do for God. But have we asked where those things come from? Is Christ the source, or is it our own ability, ambition, and determination? We can use the name of Christ while depending upon everything except Christ. We can defend the teaching of life while failing to live by that life.
This is the great loss. We have kept the words and lost the reality. We have kept the meetings and lost the fellowship. We have kept the ministries and forgotten the One who is supposed to be our life.
The Gifted Must Give Up Their Place
I have become convinced that the most gifted among us face a special danger. Their gift can become the center of everything. People gather to hear them, depend upon them, and wait for them to lead. Soon the rest of the Body becomes an audience.
The five-talented brother must be willing to die to his gift. I do not mean that the gift disappears. I mean that his need to use it, to be important, and to occupy the center must come to an end. He must be willing to be silent. He must be willing for a quiet brother or sister to express Christ without being corrected or overshadowed.
The ekklesia does not need a spiritual celebrity. It does not need one man to make every decision or to explain everything to everyone else. It needs the living Christ expressed through His members. No one person is the source. No one person’s ability is the fellowship. Christ is enough.
Where Should We Remain?
This brings us to the question I believe every Christian must face. Where are we supposed to remain? In a ministry? In a church organization? In a tradition? In the teachings of a particular man? Or in Christ Himself?
We have been taught to be faithful to religious arrangements. We stay because we have been there for years. We stay because our friends are there. We stay because we are afraid of losing our place or being misunderstood. But none of these things is the fellowship of the apostles.
If a religious system teaches us to depend upon its leaders, its methods, and its authority instead of the indwelling Christ, why should we remain in it? If the members are expected to sit and listen while a few gifted people carry the whole gathering, what has happened to the living Body? If a ministry can go on year after year without the members learning to live directly by Christ, what exactly are we preserving?
I am not calling for a better church system. I am calling for an end to our dependence upon systems. We must leave what takes the place of Christ. And we must not leave simply to build the same thing somewhere else under another name.
No One Owns This Fellowship
The fellowship of the apostles does not belong to a movement, a ministry, or a group that believes it has recovered the proper way. No one owns Zoe. No one can claim that the life of Christ is theirs to administer.
We may know different things. We may use different words. Some may have years of Christian teaching, while others may barely know how to explain what has happened within them. But if we are living in the same Christ, we share the same life.
I find it remarkable how quickly people who speak about the Body can begin to defend their own group as though it were the Body. We make our teaching the test. We make our history the test. We make loyalty to our workers the test. But the fellowship is not created by our agreement with a ministry. It comes from Christ.
We do not need permission from a gifted man to remain in the Lord. We do not need to be accepted into a special circle of believers. The door is Christ Himself.
The Mystery Is Christ in Us
The mystery that was hidden for ages is not a complicated religious secret. It is Christ in us, the hope of glory. God intends to live in human beings and be expressed through them. He does not merely want people who know about Him or work for Him. He wants His own life to become their living.
That is Zoe. That is why the apostles’ fellowship matters so much. Their fellowship was the sharing of the very life God had placed within them. And when that life is expressed through many members, we begin to see the living ekklesia.
This is not a building. It is not a meeting format. It is not a ministry with a name. It is Christ living in His people. The mystery is not fulfilled because we can explain it. It is fulfilled as His life is lived.
Cross the River
I believe there is a river we must cross. On one side are the things we have built around Christ: our religious identities, our methods, our traditions, our ministries, and our dependence upon gifted people. On the other side is Christ Himself.
We cannot take the old system across the river and expect it to become Zoe. We cannot simply replace one leader with another, one meeting with another, or one teaching with another. The source of our living must change.
And this crossing must happen within us. We can leave a church building and still carry the whole religious system in our hearts. We can reject someone else’s authority while secretly wanting authority for ourselves. We can condemn organized religion and turn our opposition to it into a new religion.
The cross must reach all of that. Our need to be right. Our need to be recognized. Our need to control. Our need to have something we can call our own. All of it must yield to Christ.
We are not crossing the river to become independent people. We are crossing because we want to live entirely from Him. We are not leaving the members of His Body. We are leaving what keeps us from knowing them in the one life.
Remain in Zoe
The apostles did not possess something that was meant to disappear with them. They knew a Christ who had become their life. They remained in Him. They shared that life with others. That is the fellowship we have been invited into.
We do not need to recreate the first-century church. We do not need another movement that claims to be the answer. We do not need more gifted men explaining the proper way to meet. We need to return to the One who is already within us.
I want to ask a very simple question. When all the meetings are over, when the teaching has ended, when the gifted speaker is gone, what remains? Is there a living Christ whom we know and abide in? Or have we become dependent upon everything surrounding Him?
The fellowship of the apostles is not a place we attend. It is the life in which we remain. It is the Father and the Son shared among His people. It is Zoe lived, not merely explained.
We have remained too long in the things that surround Christ. It is time to leave what has replaced Him. Not to start something new. Not to become the leaders of another work. But to return to the One who has always been our destination.
Cross the river. Leave the system. Let the gifted lose their place of importance. Let the methods and religious identities fall away. Remain in Christ. Remain in Zoe.
This is the fellowship of the apostles. And this is where we belong.
