"And all who believed were together and
had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions
and belongings and distributing the
proceeds to all as any had need." This
aspect of the church's life in its
unfolding story has been capitalized on
by all kinds of people and has been
pressed to various ends. For example, some
people, I remember, in the 60s used to
tell me that this was an expression of
communism that Christianity embraced a
form of strident socialism. And of course
there is no question that what is taking
place here is dramatic in its impact,
that what has happened though is that
these people have had their lives so
reoriented by discovering who Jesus is and
why he came that they have now
discovered that in being baptized they
have made a simple declaration: Jesus is
Lord. In other words, I have no freedom to
believe anything other than he taught or
to behave in any other way than he
demands. And so if he is Lord of all then
he's Lord of all. And that means that the
things that have been entrusted to me
are not simply possessions to use in
selfish ends but they are provisions
that I can share with others as need and
opportunity arises. And I think that it
must have been a dramatic impact on the
community at the time. They're much
smaller than the world in which most of
us live and so the drama of it all
would be seen, would be very easy to
detect, and it was one of the ways in
which the church was able to say: Jesus
has invaded my life and changed
everything,
and I used to be pretty selfish, in fact,
I was very selfish, and I've discovered
that Jesus has freed up
my pocketbook, that Jesus has freed up my
sort of stranglehold on things, that if I
have possessions that can be used in
another way I'm glad to do it. And by that
time Paul is writing his letters, for
example, and at one point in first
Corinthians he says, "Who made you and
what do you have that you did not
receive?" Well the answer is, I don't have
anything that I did not receive, so in
other words, the person who says, "Well, I'm
a self-made man, and I work jolly hard,
and I get to keep it all." No, not if
you're a Christian. You may have worked
really hard, but you don't get to keep it
all, no. Why not? Well, because we're
committed to the Apostles teaching, to
supporting the church, to sharing in its
life, and to participating with those who
are in need. Actually when he writes to
the Thessalonians Paul says, "Aspire to
live quietly, to mind your own affairs, to
work with your hands as we instructed
you, so that you may walk properly before
outsiders and be dependent on no one."
This is a much bigger subject that we
can get into right now, but the whole
foundational element of it is that one
of the distinctive marks of the people
of God under the rule of God is a
genuine spirit of mutual care, and to
that end we want to pray that our local
congregations will bear testimony to
that. Again, as I usually say, you can
follow up on this just with your Bible
actually, but if anything at Truth for
Life is helpful, let me commend that to
you as well.