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Detecting Christmas December 26 Devotional

by David Joynt on December 26, 2023


1 john 1:3 | 3  we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

 

God closed the distances for a reason: “Koinonia.” This word is rendered fellowship in our passage today. It’s meaning goes deeper. Koinonia is more than hobknobbing at the Sunday potluck, as enjoyable as that may be. It is deep and lasting connections, intimate understanding, unconditional love and support. It is the sharing of resources and time and meals, doing life as one. It is communal prayer and worship. It is the courageous movements of witness and service, going toward the world’s problems and needs with truth and compassion. Koinonia is a society at once deep and open, which promotes acceptance and progress for the broken saints of its company. God came at Christmas to create a new community joining the life of heaven to the life of earth.

 

What kinds of Koinonia have you experienced?

 

 

Gracious God,

Help me to join more fervently, more passionately into the life and work of your community. I want to be a Koinonia Christian. Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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