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Koinonikos means ready to share, disposed toward fellowship, or generous in making resources common for others' good. Its sole New Testament occurrence commands the rich to be sharing-minded, immediately after warning them not to hope in uncertain wealth.
Reader summary
Full entry for κοινωνικός (G2843) · Open the biblical lexicon
Koinonikos means ready to share, disposed toward fellowship, or generous in making resources common for others' good. Its sole New Testament occurrence commands the rich to be sharing-minded, immediately after warning them not to hope in uncertain wealth.
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include [and] ready to share (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at 1 Timothy 6:18. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Timothy (1).
Koinonikos means ready to share, disposed toward fellowship, or generous in making resources common for others' good. Its sole New Testament occurrence commands the rich to be sharing-minded, immediately after warning them not to hope in uncertain wealth. The adjective belongs to the koinonia word family but does not require identical ownership, erase personal stewardship, or authorize leaders to demand access to property.
Canonical scenes of shared life, participation in relief, and sacrifices of sharing illuminate its communal direction. Christian readiness to share treats possessions as tools for fellowship and need-meeting under God's ownership. It remains voluntary, truthful, accountable, and attentive to justice, refusing both isolated hoarding and manipulative collectivism that protects powerful people while burdening the vulnerable.
Koinonikos names a sharing-minded disposition. First Timothy directs the rich from private confidence in wealth toward fellowship expressed through accessible resources, good works, and life that is truly life.
Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, and to be generous and ready to share,
First Timothy 6:18 contains the direct occurrence, commanding the rich to do good, be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share. Sharing answers wealth's isolating power.
All the believers were together and had everything in common.
Acts 2:44 offers canonical support as believers hold possessions within a gospel-created shared life and meet needs. It does not use koinonikos.
They earnestly pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.
Second Corinthians 8:4 uses related koinonia language for participation in service to the saints as Macedonian believers plead for the privilege of sharing.
And do not neglect to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
Hebrews 13:16 uses related sharing language and calls doing good and sharing sacrifices pleasing to God.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Generous in the sense of actively sharing and communicating, not mere sentiment or sympathy
Generous in the sense of actively sharing and communicating, not mere sentiment or sympathy
(κοινωνία),
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
1 Greek text appearance shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
willing to share
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 1 case and number pattern. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
κοινωνικός is built from this root:
Koinonikos portrays generosity as more than transferring an object. The rich are to become people whose resources are available within fellowship because their hope rests in God rather than wealth. Related New Testament scenes show believers participating in relief, meeting needs, and treating shared care as worship. None presents forced confiscation or an unaccountable treasury.
Readiness to share grows from grace, preserves agency, and seeks the neighbor's genuine good. Churches should form relationships in which needs can be known without humiliation, contributions can be given without buying status, and funds can be administered transparently. Fellowship is contradicted when leaders demand sacrifice from vulnerable people while exempting themselves.
Sharing-minded disciples hold real stewardship with an open, responsible posture toward the body.
1Tim.6.18
Koinonikos belongs to the koinos and koinonia family of commonality, fellowship, participation, and sharing. The adjective describes someone disposed toward sharing or sociable generosity.
Israel's gleaning laws, sabbatical release, and festival provision weave resources into covenant fellowship while preserving households and restraining exploitation.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain