Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave 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 owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
--Acts 4:32-35
Are the above words a description or a prescription? If prescription, then it looks as though the first Christians were communists and today's Christians are called to be the same. Farewell economic freedom and democracy!
But hang on! Indeed, there is a kind of communism that says: "What's thine is mine." But the kind of communism in our text above (if we can call it communism) is different; in fact, it's the other way around: "What's mine is thine."
We scratch our heads at the generosity of those first followers of Christ. What prompted it? The answer is provided by the italicized reading above: the apostles proclaimed the resurrection of Christ with great power, and, as a result, great grace was upon them all. That grace extended all the way to their material possessions.
As a minister, I can tell you that there are a vast number of "stewardship" programs out there, and most of them, inevitably, address the matter of money. The gospel of Christ, while important, at times can become little more than preliminary information or "window-dressing".
Pardon me, but I'm going to say "poppycock" to that. The gospel is never "preliminary information"; for when the gospel is proclaimed with great power, when it's announced as the good news it really is, people respond to it with the whole of their lives. It's not a law of nature of or economics. It's the working of the Holy Spirit!
PD
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