The Acts of the Apostles, the history of the early church, by Luke the physician - Acts 4:32-37 comments : the unity of the early church

 

Acts 4:32 ¶  And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. 33  And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. 34  Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, 35  And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. 36  And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, 37  Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

 

Unity of vision and purpose, of heart and soul were characteristics of the early church. This is what God wants for His people. One with God, one with Christ, one with each other in faith. This is not about being of the same political party, racial group, or country of birth but about unity with God and with one’s fellow believers in belief that Christ is that bridge between man and God that other religions do not offer, that He is the only way across that chasm of sin that separates man from God, that He is God Himself, our Creator and our Saviour.

 

John 17:11 ¶  And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are…21  That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23  I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

 

Acts 1:14  These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.

 

Acts 2:1 ¶  And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

 

1Corinthians 1:10 ¶  Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

 

As these believers joined together in Jerusalem they formed a sort of commune where they surrendered their property in a kind of Christian communism, not Marx’s label whose tenets he stole from the Bible with even the wording of his idea of utopia the same. Let me revisit some earlier comments.

 

The early Christian church in Jerusalem was predominantly Jewish and lived communally sharing all things in common. The standard in this community was that people received things from the collective based on their need. Karl Marx would later appropriate this language as part of a slogan of Communism in the 1870s. We know, as God does, that a human’s sin nature would not permit such a utopia to stand for long. We must also consider that Christ had said that these people were to be witnesses for him throughout the world. So, while this church, this called-out assembly, was being formed and nurtured and strengthened it was only a matter of time before it would have to be ruptured and its members driven apart. We know from history that this would be complete at the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 because Christians supposedly fled the disaster of the Romans taking the city after the disaster of various factions of Jews murdering each other in it.

But, let’s remember their zeal and devotion to God. Later counterfeits would try to emulate this situation in monastic communities but they were a false profession of what God demanded, that we live in the world while not being of the world. Your communes and compounds containing a cult patterning themselves on the early church are not of God but of man’s own imaginings, fantasies, and all too often desire for control of others.

The preaching of Christ’s Resurrection was powerfully made and God’s grace was upon all of the believers. Here, Joses Barnabas, the son of consolation, is introduced. He will play an important part in Paul’s ministry and go off on his own. He is an important figure in the early church. There is even a phony Gospel of Barnabas and the non-canonical Letter or Epistle of Barnabas.