And all that believed were together, and had all things common,
This verse shows what the first believers' life together looked like once money and property were involved. It raises two questions: what does "together" mean here, and does "all things in common" bind Christians today?
How could so many people be "together"? One commentator starts with what the word itself means, then weighs it against the size of the crowd that day.
The words themselves do not require a meeting in one place. Their literal meaning is "for the same thing." They express sameness of aim, not sameness of place. The same phrase comes again in verse 44: "And all who believed were together and had all things in common." We know how suddenly and widely the truth spread on that one day. Are we to think they were all gathered into a single room? The Spirit of God is describing their habitual life in unity, not merely their assembling, as it would appear.
The believers did not organise this themselves. It was an effect, and one writer names the cause.
First, we see the effect and blessings of the Divine Presence in the assembly. The believers felt the Holy Spirit's presence among them, and the blessed effect was this. It bound their hearts together in a holy and loving fellowship. It made them let go of earthly things. It led them to merge their personal interests in the common good.
Something had shifted in what these believers valued. The change started with Christ, not with their money.
Their hearts followed the One whom earth rejected to the place where He had gone. That made the things of earth of little value in their eyes. So they "were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:45). They did not understand union, because God had not yet revealed that mystery. But they practised unity in a most blessed way. There were no suffering poor in the early church in Jerusalem.
Many read the verse as a blueprint for shared ownership. One writer answers by looking at the conditions in Jerusalem at the time.
Some try to make this look like the socialism of our day. The effort fails once we see the unique position of the believers at Jerusalem. There were large numbers of strangers, and many poor. Needs were great and pressing; love was warm, faith was bright. Even then the giving was voluntary, never forced. That is the complete reverse of what socialism demands. The love and the faith remain for all time. Each believer decides the conduct, though generosity is always the mark of those who have learned from God.
The practice never reappears once believers spread beyond one city. What replaced it was not less love, but love with a longer reach.
This state of things suited the church perfectly while it was all in Jerusalem, in the full early bloom created by the ungrieved Holy Spirit. Once believers were gathered to the Lord in other places, we find it no more. Sharing of goods, where grace carried it out, could by its very nature only be right while all the members were in one place. When the Lord worked in other places, those believers were just as near in divine relationship as the ones in the same city. What was special to the assembly in Jerusalem then merged into wider, more ordinary forms of love toward all the saints, wherever they lived.
If the outward form belonged to that moment, the spirit of it did not. One writer carries the point over to our own giving.
As Peter says to Ananias, no one ever demanded that believers give their goods to the assembly. No one even mentioned it to them. It was the free power of the Holy Spirit working in love to others. They set up no community of people or goods at all. They freely gave up what was their own where it could be made useful, and most blessed it was. Acting in the spirit of it will always be blessed, though there are no apostles at whose feet I may lay what I have to give. Riches are as dangerous now as then, devotedness as acceptable now as then.
- Cause. The Spirit came first; the shared purse came after. Their unity was His work, binding hearts and loosening hands.
- Together. The word describes a shared way of life, not one meeting room — thousands of believers living as one.
- Free. No one demanded and no one claimed. The giving was free, the opposite of any system that compels.
- Local. Common goods suited a church still held in one city. When believers appeared elsewhere, the same love took wider forms.
- Lasting. The form passed; the heart behind it did not. Riches are still as dangerous, and devotedness still as welcome to God.
and sold their possessions and substance, and distributed them to all, according as any one might have need.
After Pentecost something new appeared in Jerusalem. Believers sold what they owned and handed the money to anyone who was short. The verse raises two questions at once — what moved them to do it, and whether it is a pattern the church is meant to copy.
No one ordered this from above. The selling and sharing came out of the believers themselves.
The world had never seen such a sight before. Never had love risen like this above the selfishness of nature — not only in that land and race, but in any other. It came through the power of divine grace, in the name of the Crucified One now seen by faith on high. It was sweet fruit of the Spirit. It was as far as possible from a claim or a command, however right the voice of divine authority may be in its place. But here was the flow of divine love, mighty yet unasked for, embracing everyone born of God, without reserve or limit.
No law took away private ownership. Scripture names the ones who sold.
There was no communistic law among these gathered saints; it would have spoiled everything if there had been. It was a unity of heart that allowed none of them to say that what was really his belonged to him. The sale of lands and houses was optional and unasked for, as we see by the very naming of those who did this. There was therefore no general surrender of personal title, but a love that held nothing back from another's need. Where the need went deeper, those who had possessions sold them, so that no one lacked. They laid the money at the apostles' feet. It is not that everyone necessarily sold all they had. This was simply how the need was met.
Some read the scene as an early form of socialism. But force is the one thing missing here.
The effort to make this look like the socialism of the day fails completely when we see the unique position of the believers at Jerusalem. There were large numbers of strangers, and many poor. Needs were great and pressing; love was warm, faith was bright. But even then it was voluntary, not forced — the complete opposite of what socialism demands. The love and the faith remain for all time. Each believer decides what to do, though generosity is always the mark of those who have learned from God.
Something had changed in what these people counted as wealth. One writer traces it to where their hearts had gone.
Their affections followed earth's rejected One to the place where He had gone, and this made the things of earth of very small value in their eyes. Accordingly, they "were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need." There were no suffering poor in the early church in Jerusalem.
Kelly points to who these givers were — the last people anyone would expect to let go of what they owned.
There was a remarkable form that the grace took as an outward sign. It appeared in the very thing a Jew would have been as unlikely as anyone in the world to part with. No one has ever thought of the Jew as remarkable for that readiness to lay down everything he has. But that was exactly what the Spirit of God worked within them. He had come to give men another being, another relationship, and that was the effect of it. The earth was nothing, and the things on the earth were nothing.
The arrangement fit one moment. Kelly notes that this way of sharing stops when believers spread to other cities. The letters written later assume something different.
Sharing goods in grace could, by its very nature, only be right while all the members were in one place... We then have instruction and encouragement of the most precious kind about giving. We find it in Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 16; 2 Corinthians 8–9; Galatians 6; Ephesians 4; Philippians 4; 1 Timothy 6; Hebrews 13, and elsewhere. Those passages assume no state of all things common. They speak instead to rich and to poor, and appeal to each accordingly.
The early sharing had a long tail. One writer traces later poverty in Jerusalem partly back to it.
There was a famine in those days (Acts 11:27-30). The believers in Jerusalem were also especially poor because of the "Christian communism" they practised at the beginning (Acts 2:44-45). Their poverty, however, gave Gentile and Jew the occasion to build practical bonds of Christian fellowship.
- Source — the giving was fruit of the Spirit, "as far as possible from a claim or a command."
- Freedom — no law required it. Selling was optional, and no one lost the right to own.
- Cause — their hearts followed Christ to where He had gone, so earth's things looked small. That opened their hands.
- Reach — love reached every believer in want, and each gift met a real need.
- Limit — the form belonged to one city and one moment. The love behind it stayed, and shows up again in the New Testament's teaching on giving.