COMMUNION — A Word-Study Dossier κοινωνία in 1 John 1:3 and Philippians 3:10, with their threads, related words, and the LXX background This dossier assembles the texts. It does not deliver a verdict. The occurrences stand first, the related words and the background second, the open question last. ———————————————————————————— I. THE TWO TEXTS "That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:3, WEB) "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death." (Phil 3:10, WEB) One noun stands in both passages: κοινωνία (koinōnia, Strong's 2842) — fellowship, communion, participation, a sharing in common. ———————————————————————————— II. EVERY OCCURRENCE IN THE 1 JOHN 1 THREAD (1 John 1:1–7) The thread is the proclamation: what was from the beginning, heard, seen, and touched concerning the Word of life (1 John 1:1); the life revealed (1 John 1:2); the declaration made so that its hearers may have what its witnesses have (1 John 1:3); joy fulfilled (1 John 1:4); and the message — God is light — with the claim and the walk tested against it (1 John 1:5–7). κοινωνία occurs four times in the range. In three of the four, the noun stands as the object of ἔχω (echō, Strong's 2192), to have. The exception is the second occurrence in 1 John 1:3 itself, and it is recorded as an exception, not smoothed over. 1. 1 John 1:3 — κοινωνίαν (koinōnian) κοινωνία, noun, accusative feminine singular (N-AFS). Governing verb: ἔχητε (echēte), ἔχω, present active subjunctive, 2nd person plural (V-PSA-2P). ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς κοινωνίαν ἔχητε μεθ' ἡμῶν. "That you also may have fellowship with us" (1 John 1:3, WEB). The noun is the object of ἔχω, and ἔχω stands in the subjunctive inside a purpose clause (ἵνα): the having is the aim of the declaration. The partner is named by μετά with the genitive: μεθ' ἡμῶν — with us, the witnesses. 2. 1 John 1:3 — ἡ κοινωνία (hē koinōnia) κοινωνία, noun, nominative feminine singular (N-NFS). καὶ ἡ κοινωνία δὲ ἡ ἡμετέρα μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. "Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3, WEB). This occurrence is the exception in the thread: the noun stands in the nominative, as the subject of its clause, and no verb ἔχω governs it — the clause carries no expressed finite verb at all. The fellowship is further defined by the possessive ἡ ἡμετέρα, "ours," and its partners are named in two μετά phrases set side by side: with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 3. 1 John 1:6 — κοινωνίαν (koinōnian) κοινωνία, noun, accusative feminine singular (N-AFS). Governing verb: ἔχομεν (echomen), ἔχω, present active indicative, 1st person plural (V-PAI-1P). ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ' αὐτοῦ. "If we say that we have fellowship with him" (1 John 1:6, WEB). The noun is again the object of ἔχω, now in the indicative — but the whole clause stands inside a claim: it is what "we say" (εἴπωμεν), under the condition ἐάν, and the verse itself tests the claim against the walk: "and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don't tell the truth" (1 John 1:6, WEB). The partner named is μετ' αὐτοῦ — with him, with God, of whom the message has just said that He is light (1 John 1:5). 4. 1 John 1:7 — κοινωνίαν (koinōnian) κοινωνία, noun, accusative feminine singular (N-AFS). Governing verb: ἔχομεν (echomen), ἔχω, present active indicative, 1st person plural (V-PAI-1P). κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ' ἀλλήλων. "We have fellowship with one another" (1 John 1:7, WEB). The third object-of-ἔχω occurrence, and the first in the thread stated without a framing claim: it stands in the main clause, conditioned on the walk — "if we walk in the light, as he is in the light" (1 John 1:7, WEB). The partner construction changes: μετ' ἀλλήλων, with one another — the reciprocal pronoun, the only occurrence in the thread where the named partners are the believers themselves. Checked and excluded: no further κοινωνία occurs in 1 John 1:1–7. Verses 1, 2, 4, and 5 contain none. Their key nouns are ζωῆς, "of life" (1 John 1:1), ζωὴ αἰώνιος, "the eternal life" (1 John 1:2), χαρά, "joy" (1 John 1:4), and ἀγγελία, "message" (1 John 1:5). The count of four is exact: 1 John 1:3 twice, 1 John 1:6 once, 1 John 1:7 once. A note on the ἔχω syntax, as arrangement only: three of the four occurrences make κοινωνία something had — had by you, in the purpose of the proclamation (1 John 1:3); had by us, in a claim the walk must verify (1 John 1:6); had by us, stated where the walk is in the light (1 John 1:7). The present dossier records the overlap of vocabulary with the subject of the earlier ἔχω dossier in John 6 and 1 John 5 and draws no conclusion from it; the two dossiers are not merged here. Summary of the thread: four occurrences in three verses. Three are accusative and governed by ἔχω — one subjunctive (V-PSA-2P), two indicative (V-PAI-1P). One is nominative, in a clause with no expressed verb, and it is the occurrence that names the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3). Every occurrence carries μετά: with us, with the Father and with His Son, with him, with one another. ———————————————————————————— III. EVERY OCCURRENCE IN THE PHILIPPIANS 3 THREAD (Phil 3:7–11) The thread is the reckoning: what was gain counted loss for Christ (Phil 3:7); all things counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus (Phil 3:8); to be found in Him, with the righteousness from God through faith (Phil 3:9); the knowing stated (Phil 3:10); and the resurrection from the dead set ahead (Phil 3:11). κοινωνία occurs once in the range. 1. Phil 3:10 — κοινωνίαν (koinōnian) κοινωνία, noun, accusative feminine singular (N-AFS). τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ κοινωνίαν παθημάτων αὐτοῦ. "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings" (Phil 3:10, WEB). The construction is an infinitive phrase: τοῦ γνῶναι — "to know," γνῶναι being the aorist active infinitive of γινώσκω — and the infinitive governs a series of accusative objects. κοινωνίαν is one of them: first αὐτόν, him; then τὴν δύναμιν, the power, of his resurrection; then κοινωνίαν, the fellowship — and the fellowship takes its own genitive: παθημάτων αὐτοῦ (pathēmatōn autou), "of his sufferings" — παθημάτων, noun, genitive neuter plural, of πάθημα (Strong's 3804); αὐτοῦ, pronoun, genitive masculine singular, his. So the noun's object here is not a partner named by μετά. It is a thing, in the genitive: his sufferings. (The critical text brackets the article before the noun — [τὴν] κοινωνίαν [τῶν] παθημάτων in the Nestle text — a textual note on the articles, recorded here; the noun and its genitive stand in all the texts.) The related form in the same verse, distinguished: συμμορφιζόμενος (symmorphizomenos), verb, present participle middle or passive, nominative masculine singular, of συμμορφίζω (Strong's 4833), to conform to the same form. "Becoming conformed to his death" (Phil 3:10, WEB) — τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ, to his death, in the dative. This is a participle, not a noun; it is not κοινωνία, and it does different work: where the noun names a fellowship with his sufferings, the participle names the man being shaped into the form of His death. (The Byzantine text reads the cognate συμμορφούμενος, from συμμορφόω, in the same parse; the participle's role in the sentence is the same in both texts.) Checked and excluded: no further κοινωνία occurs in Phil 3:7–11. Verses 7, 8, 9, and 11 contain none. The knowledge words of the thread are γνῶσιν, "knowledge" (Phil 3:8, noun, accusative feminine singular, of γνῶσις) and γνῶναι (Phil 3:10, the infinitive above); the righteousness word of Phil 3:9 is δικαιοσύνη. Neither is κοινωνία. The count of one is exact. Summary of the thread: one occurrence, accusative feminine singular, standing as an object of the infinitive τοῦ γνῶναι, and governing a genitive of thing — παθημάτων αὐτοῦ, his sufferings. No ἔχω governs it. No μετά phrase attaches to it. ———————————————————————————— IV. RELATED WORDS, DISTINGUISHED — AND THE LXX BACKGROUND A. Related words in the New Testament These words are near neighbours of κοινωνία. They are not κοινωνία, and this dossier does not merge them into it. 1. κοινωνός (koinōnos, Strong's 2844) — a partner, a sharer, one who has a part with another. A noun, masculine. Where κοινωνία names the sharing, κοινωνός names the person who shares. — 2 Pet 1:4 — κοινωνοί (koinōnoi), noun, nominative masculine plural, standing as predicate: the readers are addressed as those who may become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4, in paraphrase). The genitives of the verse belong to the thing shared — θείας φύσεως, of the divine nature — not to the form of κοινωνός itself. Distinguished: a person-word, plural and predicated of people. In the anchor threads the abstract noun κοινωνία does the work; no form of κοινωνός appears in either thread. 2. μετέχω (metechō, Strong's 3348) — to have a share with, to partake; and its fellow verb κοινωνέω (koinōneō, Strong's 2841) — to share, to participate. Both are verbs, not nouns. Hebrews 2:14 sets the two verbs in one sentence, and the dossier cites the verse for both, in paraphrase: the children have shared in flesh and blood, and He Himself likewise partook of the same (Heb 2:14). — κεκοινώνηκεν (kekoinōnēken), κοινωνέω, perfect active indicative, 3rd person singular: the children "have shared" — the perfect stating a settled sharing in flesh and blood. — μετέσχεν (meteschen), μετέχω, aorist active indicative, 3rd person singular: He "partook" — the aorist stating His own taking of a share in the same. Distinguished: the verbs state acts and states of sharing; the anchor noun names the fellowship itself. Neither verb appears in the two anchor threads in these forms; μετέχω and κοινωνέω are recorded here only as the noun's nearest verbal neighbours. B. The LXX background The background must be stated with its sparseness intact, because the sparseness is the evidence. 1. The noun κοινωνία in the LXX: a single occurrence. In the whole Septuagint, the abstract noun κοινωνία appears once: Lev 6:2 — a verse numbered Lev 5:21 in the Hebrew text. The form is κοινωνίᾳ (koinōniā), noun, dative feminine singular, in the phrase ἐν κοινωνίᾳ χειρός, "in a partnership of hand" — inside the restitution law, in a list of wrongs against a neighbour: a deposit entrusted, a thing taken, a thing found and denied under oath (Lev 6:2–3, LXX, cited in paraphrase). The Hebrew counterpart term in the verse is עָמִית (ʿāmîth), a fellow, a neighbour — the man with whom the entrusted thing was held in common. So the one LXX occurrence of the noun names a legal holding-in-common between neighbours, and it stands in a law about its breach. The Septuagint supplies no instance of κοινωνία naming a communion between God and man; the dossier records that absence as a fact of the background, and builds nothing on it beyond the fact. 2. The person-word κοινωνός in the LXX: present, and horizontal. — Prov 28:24 (LXX) — κοινωνός (koinōnos), noun, nominative masculine singular, predicated with ἐστιν: "he is a partner of a godless man" — ὁ κοινωνός of the verse belongs to the man who casts off father or mother and thinks he does not sin (Prov 28:24, LXX, Greek verified; English in paraphrase). The genitive he carries is ἀνδρὸς ἀσεβοῦς, of a godless man. Wider LXX uses of the person-word stand in the same horizontal register: rulers as "companions of thieves" (Isa 1:23, LXX) and the wife as "your companion" (Mal 2:14, LXX), both cited in paraphrase. Partnerships between people — some of them condemned partnerships — are the LXX's whole field for this word family, so far as the noun and the person-word are concerned. That is the entire background the sources support. The dossier does not pad it: one occurrence of the noun, in a restitution law; a small set of the person-word, between human partners. The full NT field of κοινωνία — with the Father, with the Son, with one another, with sufferings — has no LXX parallel in the word itself, and the threads below are left to stand on their own wording. ———————————————————————————— V. THE THREADS, SET SIDE BY SIDE 1 John 1 thread: — The proclamation exists so that its hearers may have κοινωνία with the witnesses (1 John 1:3, accusative, object of ἔχω in the subjunctive of purpose). — The witnesses' own κοινωνία is stated in the nominative, with no governing verb: it is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3, two μετά phrases). — A claimed κοινωνία with Him is tested by the walk: claimed in the indicative under "we say," it is a lie where the walk is in darkness (1 John 1:6). — Where the walk is in the light, κοινωνία with one another is stated in the indicative, in the main clause (1 John 1:7). In 1 John, the noun is had, its partners are persons, and every partner is named by μετά. The movement of the thread runs from proclamation, to having, to the claim tested, to the walk in the light — and the cleansing by the blood of Jesus Christ His Son stands in the same verse as the fellowship with one another (1 John 1:7). Philippians 3 thread: — Gains are counted loss, and all things loss, for the knowledge of Christ Jesus (Phil 3:7–8). — The righteousness is not the man's own from the law, but from God through faith (Phil 3:9). — The knowing is stated by an infinitive with accusative objects: him, the power of his resurrection, and κοινωνίαν of his sufferings (Phil 3:10). — Alongside the noun stands the participle: becoming conformed to his death (Phil 3:10). — Ahead of the whole sentence stands the resurrection from the dead, as something to be attained (Phil 3:11). In Philippians, the noun is known, not had; it is governed by an infinitive, not by ἔχω; its complement is a genitive of thing, his sufferings, not a μετά phrase of persons; and it stands between resurrection power on one side and conformity to His death on the other. Set together: John gives κοινωνία an ἔχω frame and μετά partners — us, the Father, the Son, him, one another. Paul gives κοινωνία a γνῶναι frame and a genitive object — παθημάτων αὐτοῦ. The noun is the same. Its syntax, its partners, and its objects are not. ———————————————————————————— VI. THE CRUX, LEFT OPEN The crux stays open: John joins κοινωνία with one another to κοινωνία with the Father and with His Son, all under the apostolic proclamation (1 John 1:3). Paul names κοινωνία with the sufferings of Christ (Phil 3:10). Does κοινωνία first create companionship among people, or does it name a shared life in Christ that can also bind a person to His sufferings — and what do the objects of the noun in each thread allow the word to mean? This dossier assembles the text under that question. It does not answer it. ———————————————————————————— Sources: Greek text and parsing — Nestle 1904 via BibleHub interlinear and concordance pages (Phil 3:10: κοινωνίαν, N-AFS, Strong's 2842; παθημάτων, genitive neuter plural, Strong's 3804; συμμορφιζόμενος, present participle middle or passive, nominative masculine singular, Strong's 4833; 1 John 1:3: ἔχητε, V-PSA-2P, Strong's 2192; the ἔχομεν forms of 1 John 1:6, 1:7 are the present active indicative, 1st person plural, of the same verb), verified 2026-10-26. English — World English Bible (public domain), via Bible Gateway WEB (1 John 1:1–7; Phil 3:7–11), verified 2026-10-26; the renderings of 2 Pet 1:4, Heb 2:14, Isa 1:23 (LXX), and Mal 2:14 (LXX) are given in paraphrase and marked as such in the text. LXX — the single LXX occurrence of κοινωνία at Lev 6:2 (Hebrew numbering Lev 5:21), κοινωνίᾳ, dative feminine singular, confirmed by two independent word-study sources (Precious Seed, "A Word for Today: Fellowship"; Koinonia Greek word study, academia.edu) agreeing that the noun occurs once in the LXX, in the restitution law; Prov 28:24 (LXX) Greek — κοινωνός ἐστιν ἀνδρὸς ἀσεβοῦς — via the Freely-Given parallel verse view (Brenton LXX text), verified 2026-10-26. Phil 3:10 articles: Nestle text brackets [τὴν] and [τῶν] around κοινωνίαν παθημάτων; the Byzantine text reads συμμορφούμενος where Nestle reads συμμορφιζόμενος; both variants are recorded in section III.