by Keith Bassham
When I lecture students and others about the Baptist Bible Fellowship, I begin with the language of fellowship itself. You may safely ignore anyone implying that the word fellowship derives from the idea of two fellows in the same ship. It is an apt metaphor, but poor etymology.
The word itself comes from some very old words in the ancestry of modern English by way of Norse/Germanic: fee (as in money, property) and lay (or lag, as in laying something down), thus laying down resources in a joint venture of some sort. The ship on the end has nothing to do with sailing; it comes from the ancestor of the word shape or form, and is a very common suffix in Old English. Those involved may indeed be in a boat together, but the important point is that fellowship is, at its base, pooling resources for a common cause.
My lecture points out that this idea has biblical warrant. Fellowship in the New Testament is the word often used by translators for the koinonia word family, and those words carry the ideas of commonality, communication, and sharing. Paul declares his appreciation for the Philippian fellowship, and later in the epistle our translators use the word communicate to translate the verb forms in that word family. A close look will show that Paul is not talking about letters and cards. He is thankful that they supplied his physical needs over a long time, and had thus been involved with his mission. The connection is not difficult to see. Fellowship is more than just people palling around and exchanging pleasantries — in the New Testament people in fellowship are sharing resources (and in the case of the Philippians, scarce resources) for the sake of the gospel ministry.
But fellowship is more than a mere financial arrangement. In our Fellowship, families are intertwined, often in unique ways. Be especially careful about repeating gossip in our bunch — you may be talking to a cousin or a brother-in-law of the verbal target. And you may find that the stranger you just met at a Fellowship meeting is not a stranger at all, but a longtime Fellowship partner you had not yet met face to face.
It was my very great pleasure to meet some of those Fellowship partners at Ventura Baptist Church in our September meeting. All the Ventura folks were welcoming and anxious to serve. Of course, we are grateful to Pastor Lewis McClendon. Executive Pastor Mark Craig arranged for our special guests at the meeting, and he facilitated my interviews with George Barna and Kirk Cameron. I suspect he puts wheels on all sorts of things in the Ventura church. Harry White and Dow Jones (no, really) were very helpful to me personally. And I cannot say enough good things about Mike Flippo who lent his photographic skills to the Tribune for the week. Mike is a pro in every sense, and with Rob not able to be at the meeting, Mike was indispensable. Those are his photos in the meeting report. Thank you, Baptist Bible Fellowship, for bringing these and other good people into my path.