Everything in Common
“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul,
and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but
they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving
their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon
them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners
of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid
it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts
4:32-35).
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Here’s the plan. Everyone
here start selling your property. Cash out your bank accounts and withdraw the
funds from your IRAs and 401ks. Put your house and land on the market. And then
bring in the proceeds and put it in the offering. I’ll make sure that it gets
distributed to everyone who needs it. How’s that sound?
You heard our text,
didn’t you? Isn’t that what the Church in its early days did? “They had
everything in common.” The “owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the
proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was
distributed to each as any had need.” It worked wonderfully: “There was not a
needy person among them.” Why shouldn’t we be doing the same?
Oh, I can see it by the
looks on your faces. You know there’s something wrong with this plan. But what
is it?
It’s not that it’s a
form of socialism (though socialism has its own problems). The Bible does not
put forward any economic system over another. It’s not just that your pastor would
be the one who collects and distributes all the money as he sees fit. (Though
that certainly has the potential for abuse, or even worse: developing into a
cult.) No, there is a bigger problem with this plan: It is misusing scripture. It
would be making this passage prescriptive
rather than descriptive.
Let me explain the
difference: Prescriptive texts prescribe—they
tell you what you should be doing. So for instance, when the Lord says, “You
shall not kill,” it’s prescriptive: He’s telling you what you should be doing,
namely preserving life. Likewise, He tells you to repent, “Take and eat,” love
your neighbor, etc. Those are prescriptive texts. On the other hand, descriptive
texts simply describe things that happened without telling you to do anything.
Some examples would be texts that tell that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish
or that Jesus walked to Jerusalem. You don’t have to be swallowed by a great
fish or walk to Jerusalem to be a Christian: these are simply things that
happened.
Sometimes, people
confuse the two and turn descriptions into laws. For instance, I’ve heard that
since David danced before the Ark of the Covenant, we should include dance in
worship. Or, since the apostles spoke in tongues on Pentecost, we must speak in
tongues, too. Or since Jesus washed His disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, we
should have foot washing in our Maundy Thursday service. But this is bad
interpretation: this is turning descriptions into commandments.
Our text is another example.
It’s descriptive: it tells us what the first Christians did, how they handled
their resources. But it isn’t prescriptive: there’s no command in the text that
you must do the same thing to be a Christian. You don’t have to sell everything
and give it to me to be a forgiven child of God.
So why is this text
here—why is this description included? The answer may be unexpected, but also unsurprising:
this description is here to point to Christ.
“There was not a needy
person among them,” says our text; and while it doesn’t show up in the English,
there’s a link in the language that points us back to Deuteronomy 15:4-5: “But
there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that
the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess—if only you will
strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this
commandment that I command you today.”
Back at Moses’ time,
the Lord declared to the Israelites that there would be no needy people among
them in the Promised Land if they were careful to obey all His commands. You
know what happened: they failed to keep His commands and rebelled against Him.
In consequence, there was poverty, hunger, invasion, and death. They were needy
because they rejected the Lord who provides.
In Acts 4, the first Christians
are in Jerusalem, the heart of the Promised Land. They have not carefully
obeyed all of God’s commands, either—they’re sinful, and don’t deserve the Lord’s
blessing. They would be lost and condemned, but they trust in Christ who has
just died for their sins and risen again. For the sake of Jesus, God blesses
them because He sees them as forgiven, He sees them as His beloved children who
have kept His commands. Therefore, He fulfills His promise: there are no poor
among them, because the Lord has blessed them.
First and foremost, He
has blessed them with salvation in Christ. By means of the Word, great grace is
upon them all. Next, He blesses them with what they need for this life. How? As
He often does, He uses people to accomplish His will. He uses Christians to share with each other so
that there is no needy among them.
In other words: in
Deuteronomy 15, the Lord declared that there would be no needy among His people
when He blessed them. In Acts 4, the fact that there is no needy among them is
an announcement that God has blessed them, He has blessed them with redemption in
Christ. The fact that there are no needy among them is an announcement that the
Messiah has come and saved His people.
We do not read of class
conflict, of social cliques, in the Jerusalem church. What we find is people
who are “of one heart and soul.” They have “everything in common.” The church’s
unity expressed itself in a willingness to share. This was not a regulation of
the apostles. The right to hold property and have personal possessions had not
been abolished. But no one took the attitude of “what’s mine is mine.”
Voluntarily, they used what they had to supply for the needs of others.
What held all these
people together was their one faith; they were “those who believed.” Faith is
the inner and essential bond of union in the Church. The communion of saints is
such by faith alone. Mere outward connection with a church body does not
constitute true membership, although it may lead to that. This is a spiritual
state in the soul and not a matter of outward arrangement. Although faith, of
course, produces many visible results, for those who believe will show their
faith in many ways, and all these manifestations are valuable, but valuable
only as evidences of the inner state, the precious saving faith itself.
So the first believers
share what they have with one another. Thankful for grace and trusting that God
will provide, they have everything in common. Like other signs in the days of
the apostles, this bit of utopia won’t last long. Two verses after our text, we
read of Ananias and Sapphira, who sell some property, say they are giving it
all to Church, but secretly withhold some for themselves, and are struck dead. In
the next chapter, some of the Greek believers complain that their widows are
being neglected in favor of the Hebrews in the daily distribution.
And persecution is just
around the corner. Those who have rejected the blessings of Jesus will come
after His people. Rather than share and provide, they will take and confiscate.
They’ll drive the believers out of Jerusalem: they’ll all be starved nearly to
death before the Romans break down the walls and finish the job.
So there you go: the
lesson of this text is not that you have to sell everything you have and give
it to me. Rather, the charity of these first Christians is announcement that
God has blessed His people by sending the Savior.
Having said all that,
though, there is a danger in becoming too attached to the things that you are
free to hold on to. Possessions so easily become idols that we must hold on to
and can’t part with, even when it means ignoring those in need. In one of Aimee
and my morning devotions this week, we read Hebrews 10:32-34, which says in
part to early believers:
But recall the former days when,
after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,
sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes
being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in
prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you
knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.
Already at the time of
that writing, zeal is fading among Christians and the writer tells them to stir
up one another to do good works. In the early days, they were willing to endure
suffering—and rather than just give things away, they accepted the plundering
of their property joyfully. Why? Because they knew they had a better
possession, an abiding one. They knew the value of the salvation won by Christ.
It is the same salvation that Christ bestows upon you.
Therefore, you are set
free to be God’s instruments, to give what you have to those in need. And while
you are in no way required to sell everything you have, a lack of charity to
neighbors and offerings to God is a warning signal—an indication that your possessions
may have become your gods. Face it: greed, covetousness, and a lack of
compassion come easy to self-centered sinners like you and me, turning the
daily bread God gives us into idols that seem more precious than the
forgiveness Christ has won.
A natural response is
along the lines of, “Well, how much should I give?” or “How much do I have to
give?” or “How much do I get to keep?” These are all questions that call for a
Law answer, a command about generosity. But you don’t give to others because
you have to as a Christian; you do so
because you are free to. You do so because you know that you have a better
possession and an abiding one. For the sake of Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is
yours.
So I cannot tell you
how much to give: I can tell you how much we need to meet our annual budget,
but not how much of that is on you. Rather, I urge you to examine yourself for
sins like greed or fear that would keep you from giving to others. I would bid
you to confess them, lest those sins become unforgiven obstacles that
eventually lead you to forsake the Lord. And as one forgiven, I would urge you
to meditate upon the gift of life that God has given you. As you do so, I would
predict that your motivation towards giving grows—not because you have to change, but because you have been changed.
For you have a better
possession and an abiding one. You have unfailing grace and life all for the
sake of Jesus Christ who was crucified for your sins and raised for your
salvation. See, there’s one more bit of good news in how those first Christians
shared when the Lord blessed them: it’s a foretaste of eternal life. It’s a
preview of the restoration of Paradise.
Here, there is a
poverty of life, health, joy, happiness—all because of sin. But when you are
raised from the dead, all such poverty will be gone: the Lord “will wipe every
tear from [your] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be
mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away”
(Revelation 21:4). All poverties will be vanquished, and all that is left is
abundance: and abundance of every good gift from God.
That’s your hope, all
for the sake of Jesus Christ, crucified for your sins and raised for your
justification. Whatever your amount of daily bread, you are not needy for
salvation, because the Lord showers it upon you by His Word and Sacrament.
Great grace is upon you, and so you are forgiven for all of your sins.
In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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