Serve & Share Out Of Love & Compassion, Not Compliance & Discontent
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(44) All the believers were together and had everything in common. (45) They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (46) Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, (47) praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’ (Acts 2:44-47)
There are many who take the fellowship of the early church, as described in Acts 2:42-47, as Jesus approving socialism, or communism in its true form, as a proper form of governance for His people. At first glance, this seems to be true; the early church, as it grew from 120 at the day of Pentecost to over 3,000 when the latter portion of Acts 2 records this growth, is described as communal; the church members ate together, sold property to help others in need or pay for those who were led to go out in mission trips away from Jerusalem and Israel.
But is this a true assessment of the early church, and a true assessment on socialism/communism? The first thing we find from the teachings of Karl Marx and his ‘Communist Manifesto’ is that communism must be atheistic, or having no ‘god’ to interfere with the power of the state. The state, as defined my Marx, is that it holds total, absolute power.
The power cannot be attributed to God or any one person, in theory, but in the collective state of the people giving up their individual power in return for the collective state providing for their every needs. Marx’s famous (or, more correctly, infamous) quote, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” reinforces this belief in individuals working solely for the benefit of the state. The state, under communism, expects everyone to work up to their best standards and efforts; the ‘reward’ is having basic needs satisfied, nothing more or less.
Communism disregards the human nature each of us have of ‘risk versus reward’. If one is a top performer in a factory, for example, making 100 widgets in a day, and his colleague on the same assembly line is making 10 widgets a day, and both make the same daily wage, the top performer will eventually decide that making 100 widgets is not worth it – making 10 widgets and resting the rest of the day is equal to his colleague’s output, and they will make the same amount of money, just as before. Communism is a form of governance that encourages people to do the minimum amount of effort.
This is not what the early church members were about. Communism requires ‘forced sharing’ of resources; if you have the ability to farm and grow food, the food you grow must be shared and distributed to your fellow ‘comrades’, as your ‘ability’ to grow food must go toward others’ ‘needs’. The early church members, though, were not forced into any of their sharing. It was a willingness to share among each other what God blessed them with. It was a pure form of communal activity, to seek fellowship with other Christians through sharing the blessings of God with others to gain more believers through their example of loving one another through Jesus.
The Bible, indeed, promotes capitalism, or through the greater use of one’s skills and efforts, the rewards of labor increase accordingly. Capitalism is a form of governance that encourages people to do the maximum amount of effort. Ephesians 4:28, for example, promotes hard work so a Believer may earn enough to have the ability to share with others.
In various places in the Bible, such as in 1 Chronicles 21, shows property was owned by individuals and not the government; Arunah owned the threshing floor on the future Temple Mount, and David insisted on buying it and not taking it through ‘eminent domain’. Savings was also encouraged; in Matthew 25 the Parable of the Gold Bags, though not necessarily the point of Jesus’ parable, that it is better to save money in an interest-bearing account to earn more money, instead of having the money sit and do nothing. This was not to promote greed, but to be sound in money management, to save for ‘rainy days’ and for times when it would be necessary to share with others who had a need.
The people in Acts 2:45 who sold their property and their possessions or holdings did so, not out of any forced compliance but out of the direction of the Holy Spirit and in compassion they had for others. The tithes and offerings of today are no different. No one is (or should be) forced to give a tithe or offering to any church. It should be a willing provision of giving treasures for the benefit of the church, based on individual desire and the direction of the Spirit, for the collective benefit of the church and its people. Likewise, time and talents are given by each Believer in the same manner. No one is (or should be) forced to work to accomplish a church project or activity. It needs to be a willing sacrifice of one’s time and effort to accomplish such.
Communism (and is twin sibling socialism) generates contempt and bitterness. Forced compliance becomes intolerable and brings seeds of discontent and discord. The early church did not do this. It instead brought a teamwork, a unity of like-minded Believers who had a common goal of promoting the Truth of Jesus and broadcasting His message of Salvation and Grace through the Great Commission. Do what you can for Jesus, out of love and compassion and not out of a heart of forced compliance and discontent.
