Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. -1 John 4:11-12

One of the core claims of Christianity is that “God is love.” God, in His holiness and fiery glory, is love! Everything He is, and everything He does, flows from this essential fact. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love and delight in each other, and human beings were created from an overflow of that love for participation in that communion.

The biblical concept of relational “communion” appears throughout the scriptures in the language of koinonia. Koinonia is a Greek word that connotes fellowship, joint participation, sharing, companionship, and more. It is a richly-relational word, and it describes what Christian relationships in the church ought to be.

But how do we experience this communion? Is it even possible when our world is so fractured and fierce? Why do churches and Christian relationships fall apart? How do we strengthen them when we have them?

The small collection of the apostle John’s letters help us to answer these questions and see how our communion with each other grows out of our communion with God.