True Community Quotes

“A willingness to share our possessions with one another is a very important aspect of true biblical community.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community

“This is fellowship: sharing with one another what God is teaching through the Scriptures, and this is an important part of true community.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“It is not the fact that we are united in common goals or purposes that makes us a community. Rather, it is the fact that we share a common life in Christ.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community

“The reason most of us do not see opportunities to serve is that we are continually thinking about ourselves instead of others.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“one of the chief characteristics of a servant is that he serves downward — that is, to those who by the world’s standards are beneath him in position or station in life.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“If we are to master the scriptural principles of true biblical community, we must master this one: True greatness in the kingdom of heaven involves serving one another. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant” (Matthew 20:26).”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“Fellowship is much, much more than food and fun and even more than reading and studying the Scriptures with another believer. Fellowship at times may involve blood, sweat, and tears as we stand side by side with our persecuted brothers and sisters.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“For an action to be truly obedient to God, it must be done from a motivation of genuine love and gratitude to Him.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“Whether fellowship is perceived as participation or partnership, in either case it implies a responsibility to fulfill our function in the body. We usually don’t think of fellowship in terms of fulfilling a responsibility, but that is because we have lost sight of the biblical meaning of fellowship. Fellowship is not just a social privilege to enjoy; it is more basically a responsibility to assume.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“It is relatively easy to serve those above us — even the world expects this — but Jesus served downward.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“If Christ grieved over unrepentant Jerusalem, does He not grieve over unrepentant America as well? If we would fully enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, we must begin to see sin from His point of view.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“Without this relationship with God, there can be no spiritual relationship with one another.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“Biblical community, then, incorporates this idea of an active partnership in the promotion of the gospel and the building up of believers.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“Practice of true community involves responsibilities and actions that do not come naturally to us.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community

“In the same way, as we live the Christian life, we should continue to renounce any confidence in ourselves, placing our trust entirely in Him. But this does not mean we should become passive in a “let go and let God” approach to the Christian life. Rather, we are called to a dependence on Christ, as well as a dependence on the Holy Spirit, whose work it is to mediate the life of Christ to us, enabling us to live the kind of lives that are pleasing to God.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“John Owen again expressed this attitude of total reliance on Christ when he paraphrased Galatians 2:20: “The spiritual life which I have is not my own. I did not induce it, and I cannot maintain it. It is only and solely the work of Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me. My whole life is His alone.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“Every desire to read the Bible and to do God’s will, every manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit, be it ever so small, was the living result of my being in Christ.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“If Christ grieved over unrepentant Jerusalem, does He not grieve over unrepentant America as well?”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“God’s love always transcends human love, even human family love, in its ability to reach out to those in need.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“To experience His fellowship in suffering we must do as the apostles did: rejoice because we have been counted worthy to suffer for His name (see Acts 5:41).”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“The universal testimony of those who have suffered for the sake of Christ and His church is that they have experienced a deep fellowship, an intimate communion with Him in the midst of their sufferings.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“If we desire to experience the totality of fellowship with Christ, we must expect to experience the fellowship of His sufferings.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“We have somehow gotten the idea that the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10 means an abundance of health, wealth, and happiness. The idea of suffering for the sake of Christ is foreign to us. We have substituted the pursuit of happiness for the pursuit of holiness. We hesitate to sacrifice even our material possessions for His cause, let alone sacrificing our lives or the lives of our children upon the altar of His service.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“Fellowship is not just a social privilege to enjoy; it is more basically a responsibility to assume.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“This is not a book on love or even on gifts but a book on community and on fellowship — a sharing together of the life we have in common in Jesus Christ. It is love that, practically speaking, enables us to share together that life. It is the cement of love that binds together those living stones that are being built into a spiritual house. Love is the ligament that binds the members into one body. And though our gifts are important in the functioning of the body, it is love that gives unity to the body and makes that functioning effective.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“The psalmist said to God, “With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth” (Psalm 119:13). He declared to others what God was teaching him. Through this exercise, he not only edified others but also strengthened his own understanding of God’s truth. There is an old adage that says, “Words disentangle themselves when passing over the lips or through the pencil tips.” As we share our thoughts with others, we learn because we are forced to organize and develop our ideas.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“But this is what servant-hood within the fellowship of believers is all about: being alert to the little things that need to be done and then doing them.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“the reason we in the West do not suffer more persecution is because we have accommodated ourselves too much to the world around us.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“In fact, there is no such thing as grudging obedience. For an action to be truly obedient to God, it must be done from a motivation of genuine love and gratitude to Him.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

“All believers share a common life in Christ, whether or not we recognize it. We are in fellowship with literally thousands of believers from every nation of the world. Although we have never met most of them, we are in fellowship with them. We disagree with many of them over various issues of faith and practice, yet we are still members of the same body. Even though we struggle to like some of them, that does not alter the fact that we share together a common life in Christ. Neither our attitudes nor our actions affect this objective sense of koinonia. We are in community with all other believers, whether or not we like it or even recognize the fact.”
― Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia