3712 — The Word "Fellowship"
What is the force of the word "fellowship" in Eph. 3:9? J. N. M. This is fairly well stated in the Revised Version: "To make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery." The "fellowship of the mystery" is the dispensation—the giving—of the mystery of God to the world. Rotherham's rendering: "And to bring to light what is the administration of the sacred secret." And yet that ministration, and that administration, is the fellowship of all the children of God; for as soon as one becomes a child of God, it is his duty to give that which has made him a child, to others; and so Paul tells us, in Rom. 1:14, "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise." The same God that had bought him by His most precious blood, had bought the whole world; and therefore he was indebted to the whole world, through Christ. But the giving of that to the world was the divine and blessed fellowship of the mystery, in which all may have a part.