Acts 4:32-37--They Had Everything in Common

Acts 4:32-37
English Standard Version
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They Had Everything in Common
32 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. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 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 35 and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. 36 Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, 37 sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

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We have seen the Holy Spirit come upon the disciples gathered together for Pentecost.  We have see the number of the disciples grow, and we have seen God accompany the gospel message they were preaching with great power, signs and wonders so that no one could deny they were speaking God's truth, for God had told the Jews to ask any prophet bringing new revelation to them to perform a sign and to test the prophecies they had made.  If the person's prophecies did not come to pass they were a false prophet that should be put to death, and if the man had no power to give a sign from God, then they were not to believe him.  This is why we saw the Jews continually asking Jesus for a sign, and He put up with it for a bit when they were truly interested in investigating whether His message was from God, but at a certain point, it became like they wanted Jesus to perform for them and just show them something bigger and greater, even though they had no intention of believing.  At that point Jesus called them a wicked and perverse generation and told them that no additional sign would be given to them other than "the sign of Jonah," that is Jesus' resurrection on the third day.

Now the disciples are coming under persecution from the Jewish civil and religious leadership (the chief priests, teachers of the Law, and the Council--notice it's the same group of people involved with putting Jesus on trial).  Peter and John have proclaimed the gospel with boldness in the Temple on a daily basis and this day there was a man who had been lame for more than 40 years, since birth, who was healed in the name of Jesus who came with them and was testifying to what God had done for him in the name of Jesus.  The Council arrested all of them and made them stand trial the next morning, and since the Council could not refute the facts or the conclusions they came to, they instead tried to use their power where their rulings held the same authority as the Law to command that Peter, John and the man who had been healed must no longer preach or do miracles in the name of Jesus.  Peter and John replied by saying "We must obey God and not man," meaning that in this situation God had already given them an clear command in what we call The Great Commission and God's authority superseded the authority of the Council because any other authority is derivative because it is authority God has delegated and those rulers to whom God has given authority to are responsible to encourage people to obey God, not live in rebellion against Him.

When Peter and John had come back to the place where the disciples were all meeting together their response to the threats was to have a prayer meeting where they prayed for holy boldness and the ability to stand in the face of opposition (and maybe persecution too).  They prayed for God's great name to be magnified and glorified through this, and then they went out and spread the gospel like never before so that there were now about 5,000 in the Church who called themselves disciples.  The group was getting large enough now that you would expect that there would start to be fractures and factions, but instead the passage today tells us that they had all things in common.  What does that mean and what does it not mean?

1) This is a statement about the Communion of the Saints for sure.  They had everything in common in the sense of they were united in their faith because there was one common faith and one gospel they were clinging to.  It will not be long before false teachers and false doctrines infiltrate the Church and attempt to deceive and divide.

​2) They shared all their material possessions with one another because they understood stewardship--everything belonged to God anyways, and they were to use what God had entrusted to them to do what God would want done.  One of the main things God had told them to do in the Old Testament was to make sure that no brother or sister was ever in need, for that would damage God's name and reputation.  Does that mean that we believe in a prosperity gospel where no one will ever be in need of anything?  No!  Does it mean that we believe in communism where everyone both Christian and non-Christian gives all their wealth to the State and entrust wicked men to be the stewards of God's resources?  No!  This is something spoken of that is directly associated with the character and nature of the disciples in the Church towards one another.  While there is a genuine concern and benevolence for all people made in the image of God, our first priority must be towards those who are called by the name of the LORD, and more specifically those in our immediate vicinity should come first--for if we can actually meet the need (buy food, clothing, shelter, or whatever else the person needs), we should do that for them, but it becomes hard to figure that out for people that live further away and sometimes all we can do is send money to our brothers and sisters who live far away from us.  There is a biblical example of that too that we'll get to later in Acts, but understand that this is not an attempt to redistribute wealth, this is this who have been blessed with more than what they need seeing genuine needs in their fellow disciples and meeting those needs as God has provided.  This is not something that anyone outside the Church should be able to to claim as their own as it is totally separate from the idea of alms given to the poor and needy.

3) They shared their houses to meet together in and they also regularly celebrated Holy Communion and everyone brought enough for the fellowship meal to be shared with all--even those who had nothing to bring.

I'm sure that there are other things that Luke means to emphasize here that I'm missing, but the key elements I'm sure are that they have a common faith, a common Lord and Savior, and they have a common identity in Christ as disciples as well as all of them having been given the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The fact that they are taking care of each other and fellowshipping together are outpourings of this Communion of the Saints that we see.  It is not primarily something external, but it is something that necessarily will work its way out of us for we cannot have true faith and not have this same kind of communion with other disciples (especially other church members).

Don't miss that interwoven with their giving of tithes and offerings they were giving testimony to who God was and what He had done to save them and change them.  Remember that they had prayed for boldness to magnify and glorify the name of the Lord, and they are doing so even through their generosity and stewardship.  We don't usually think of the time the offering is collected as a time for testimonies to be given, but perhaps it could be (again, the events recorded in this book are descriptive and not always prescriptive, though there are principles taught that we should understand, follow and obey).

We are no introduced to one of the main characters of the book of Acts, and that is Joseph also known as Barnabas, "The Encourager."  This man had been a wealthy Levite living on Cyprus (there are all kinds of things wrong about that picture as the Levites were given specific cities in the Promised Land to live in and they were never to own anything for themselves, but were to depend on the offerings and sacrifices that the people made to take care of them and their families).  Barnabas gives his life and his wealth to the service of the Lord and he will be one of the people that accompanies Paul on his first missionary journey that we'll be talking about in another several chapters.  We see here though that he has had a changed heart and no longer desires to collect wealth for himself, but instead is willing to sell everything and lay it at the feet of the apostles for them to do with it as they need, for he is once again returning to his proper place as a Levite of depending on the generosity of God's people to help him survive.

This will lead us directly into our next passage about Ananias and Sapphira.  They will see what Barnabas did and they will become jealous of the attention that he has gotten for the large donation that he made, so they will try to make a similar donation but with the wrong heart (I would compare these two "sacrifices' to the sacrifices made by Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis and it was not the sacrifice itself that was so much at issue, but the heart with which the sacrifice was made).  In the case of Ananias and Sapphira, we'll see that their intent was to be dishonest with the Church and to bring glory to themselves and not to the Lord.  More on that next time though.