Acts 2 and Communal Living

Over the past few years, I’ve been challenged and blessed by some short outings into the Tenderloin District with some buddies, pouring cups of coffee for folks on the street, giving out handmade scarves made by some faithful women in our church, and listening to people’s stories. Sometimes we’d pray for people, other times we’d just sit and listen. Through those experiences, I’ve been struck by meeting these people on the streets – each one of whom has a family, friends, and a compelling life story – yet are no longer connected to once might have been a vibrant community. They are strikingly alone. I remember one 70-something-year old grandfather who hadn’t talked to any members of his family for years and years, and thinking how difficult that whole circumstance might be. He had been severed from community.

As I’ve blogged a couple times before, I’ve been slowly reading through Neither Poverty nor Riches by Craig Blomberg, as he walks through the Old and New Testaments, as well as inter-testamental literature, trying to put together a cohesive biblical perspective on the place of and posture to possessions for today’s follower of Jesus. Just the other night, I got to the section where Blomberg walks through Acts, and in particular the section on Acts 2:42-47, a very common passage used by churches today to examine what communal life looked like for the first-century church. As I read through his analysis, I was struck by a number of things:

1. The first-century church’s attitude toward possessions was an outflow of their relationship with the Holy Spirit. First, looking at Acts 2:42, Blomberg starts off with the statement, “What we do or do not do with our material possessions is an indicator of the Spirit’s presence or absence.” (Blomberg, 161) Our outward use or misuse of possessions (including money), I believe, reflects what our posture toward it is – is it something that is ultimately more important than our relationship with God, or something that holds it’s proper place as a blessing from God, in order to be a blessing to others?
2. The first-century church’s communal living was a continual activity. Acts 2:43-47 “is no once-for-all divestiture of property…but period acts of charity as needs arose.” I’ve always looked at this passage with the idea that once people came to faith in Jesus, they sold or gave away everything they had into the common pool of the church community. However, as Blomberg notes, there are even grammatical clues that suggest this isn’t a one-time act, but a repeated act of obedience to Jesus. In particular, this passage is littered with a string imperfect verbs (which suggest an ongoing, or even habitual action in past time, represented in bold here), as opposed to aorists (which usually accompany historical narratives as past-tense verbs portraying completed actions) – (1) they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and breaking bread, (2) awe came on every soul, (3) all who believed were together, (4) they were selling their possessions, (5) were distributing the proceeds to all, (6) they received their food with gladness and (7) the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. All the other verbs in this section are participles that are dependent on one of those seven imperfect (habitual or customary) verbs. Pretty cool.
3. The first-century church’s communal living is probably best understood as normative instead of merely descriptive. This one was possibly the most intriguing to me. I’ve heard a number of times that many of the narratives in Acts are meant to be taken as stories, descriptors of what happened in the early church, but not necessarily as prescriptive for the church today. However, Blomberg brings up a few interesting points. (1) While it is true that not all stories in the Bible are not necessarily timeless principles, “as part of inspired Scripture, narrative is as much a database for theology as any other genre.” (Blomberg, 163) For some reason, this struck a light bulb in me – my go-to sections of the Bible are always either the various epistles, or Jesus’ explicit teachings. But, since the whole Bible is the Word of God, the narratives are there not just for color, but to instruct and inform the people of God as well. To be sure, while there are some not so pretty stories in the Bible, there are definitely some stories in there that exemplify right praxis. And in this case, Blomberg’s assertion is that it is meant to be taken normatively. Looking at Luke’s organization of the letter, and the juxtaposition of Acts 2:42-47 against the Ananias and Sapphira episode in Acts 5, you see a contrast of a good example and a bad example of right living in the first-century church.

So why did I begin with the story of the 70-something year old man in the beginning who had been effectively severed from his community? I venture to say, that had that person been a part of a vibrant church community living under the reign of God and following the patterns of Acts 2:42-47, that never would have happened. Not even close. Relationally, people in the church would have swept in and helped that guy get back on his feet, taken him in, participated in finding work training programs, financially supported him to tide him over through his turbulent life season. I do remember that guy saying he still trusted in God as the ultimate provider, but for him, I think that took on more of a “big-picture, in the grand scheme of things” perspective, rather than a tangible, “right now” perspective. The beauty of the gospel is that the promises that are alluded to in Revelation – such as the absence of poverty – are meant to be at least partially realized now as we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

(Possibly) Related posts:

1. The Old Testament and Material Possessions
2. Jesus’ Parables and God’s Intended Design