The hungry, the ill-clothed, the poorly sheltered, the orphan are at long last becoming more visible to the American public. While urgent needs have existed just beyond our doorsteps for years, it has taken a brutal war, severe famines, and recession to bring human needs to the fore. While the urgency of these are still hammering at our consciences, it is well for Christians to begin re-evaluating our response -- our reasons and patterns for sharing.
The tack often followed in a quest for a Christian economic policy has been to focus on relevant passages in the New Testament -- and rightly so. Yet, one of the passages that is key to our understanding of monetary responsibility has suffered a history of misinterpretation and disregard. That passage is the early chapters of Acts, which reveal the sharing among Christians of the early Jerusalem community. A proper understanding of this initial corporate response to need can provide the 20th-century Christian with principles by which to direct the formation of our responses.
One indication of the misunderstanding surrounding the economics of the Jerusalem Christian community is that it has been called an "experiment," implying that this type of sharing was later discontinued or discredited. A proper response requires investigation first into the social milieu of Jerusalem and second into Paul's collection for Jerusalem.
There were many poor in Jerusalem during the third decade of the first century. Some had been impoverished by the city's frequent inflationary prices, caused by the city's dependence on Palestine for both food and raw materials. Others had migrated to Jerusalem in hopes of securing aid through the alms offered by pilgrims, and even more had found their financial resources diminished by excessive taxation.
Considering Jesus' appeal to the oppressed, it is likely that many converts within the early Jerusalem community were economically deprived. Add to this number the group of displaced families from Galilee who had been followers of Jesus and the task of supporting a large contingent of apostles and teachers, and one begins to understand the mammoth task originally besetting the community in meeting the basic subsistence needs of its members. Thus the liquidation of property was not an experiment opted for from several alternatives. Rather, it was the necessary loving response of Christians to the pressing need about them.
Because the severity of these needs did not diminish within the subsequent 20 years, many commentators have viewed the sharing project a failure. But before this accusation is accepted one should investigate the changing needs of the community throughout the fourth and fifth decades of the first century. Along with the growing tension between the Jews and the Romans was a growing apprehension of the Jewish ruling party, the Sadducees, concerning their political power. Since these Sadducees regarded their power and wealth to be directly dependent upon the people's high regard for the Mosaic Law and Temple sacrificial practices, they regarded as enemies those who threatened this religio-political base. As understanding and articulation of anti-temple sentiment grew within the Christian community, so did the persecution. Evidence of overt persecution is recorded in Acts (7:54-8:3; 9:29; 12:1-5; 23:12-15) and it is only natural to assume that the persecution was intensified in agonizing and crippling forms of covert persecutions -- such as the loss of jobs or customers or of economic privilege. These were to be major factors which forced the Christian community to extend their request for aid to members of the Christian body outside Jerusalem.
The fulfillment of that request for relief funds by the Pauline communities was an important factor in the development of Christian economic policy. First, by appropriating aid for the Jerusalem Christians, Paul was supporting the legitimacy of their need. Put together Paul's denunciation of slothfulness (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 6:10) with his urging several Aegean communities to aid Jerusalem (e.g. 2 Corinthians 8) and one realizes that the cause of Jerusalem's fiscal problems did not stem from immature or slothful community policies but from external pressure.
Second, by extolling Macedonian Christians for their giving "out of extreme poverty" and "beyond then means" (2 Corinthians 8:1-7), Paul demonstrates his approval of the sacrificial giving of the Jerusalem community for the same purpose. That is, Paul accepted the principle that the need of others was to determine the extent of Christian giving--not a legislated percentage.
Third, Paul supports the principles of the economic policies of the Jerusalem community by extending them from an intra-community to an inter-community practice. Just as a needy individual with in a Christian community was to be cared for by the other members, so too a needy Christian community within the wider network of Christian churches was to be cared for by the more affluent communities (2 Corinthians 8:13-15; 1 Corinthians 12:26).
Therefore in response to those who consider the economic policy of the Jerusalem community to have been an experiment there are two objections. The large number of needy within the community and the severe external economic pressures gave the Christians no other loving option than to give beyond their means, even to the liquidation of property. The sharing was not so much a carefully devised social program as a spontaneous response to pressing need. Also, within the context of Paul's collection for Jerusalem, we see an acceptance and expansion of Jerusalem's policies. The meeting of need was to be practiced on not only an intra-community but an inter-community basis.
One of the most distinctive features of the sharing was the extent of their voluntary giving. Acts 2:45 is best translated: "They often sold possessions and distributed them to any, as needs arose," and Acts 4:34 as: "Those who owned lands and houses would frequently sell them and bring the proceeds of what had been sold." These passages portray not a one-time commitment in which all possessions became common property but rather a sensitivity to the needs of those within the community. Community members frequently and voluntarily sold lands, houses, and other types of property in order to meet the community needs. Because it is likely that most people retained their jobs whenever possible, this meant that they did not limit their sharing to earned income. Rather, as the needs around them grew, the Jerusalem Christians joyfully began simplifying their lives -- selling extraneous possessions, not as propagators of a new social program but as people who were experiencing an exchange of their security in possessions for a security in God. Thus, even though the Jerusalem community should not be called communistic, its economic model was a challenge to the traditional understanding of private ownership. The believers gave in ways which retained the dignity of the recipients; they gave until all needs were met; and they gave beyond their earnings to the liquidation of possessions.
By a brief analysis of the summaries of Acts 2 and 4 and an even briefer analysis of Paul's positive response to the material needs at Jerusalem, we have determined what the Jerusalem community was not. But our best guidelines for a Christian economic policy for today are drawn from what did form the basis of their economic response.
One of the most obvious but perhaps most important lessons of this community was that spiritual commitment was not isolated from the material. The positive aspect of "believing" necessitated a negation of false securities, such as wealth, social status, and false religious piety.
This is visible in the role of God's spirit within the life of the community. G.B. Caird writes, "The community of possessions was the outward symbol of an inner community of thought and purpose, and both were the product of the Holy Spirit." This is an aspect of the Spirit's task which has often been overlooked. Just prior to Luke's depiction of the communal sharing (Acts 4:32ff) is a narrative depicting the empowering by the Holy Spirit. The leaders of the distribution of goods were chosen on the basis of their reputation as being "full of the Spirit" (Acts 6:3), and Ananias' reversal of priorities to reliance on his possessions was regarded as a "lie to the Holy Spirit" (Acts 5:3). The role of God's Spirit then was to empower the believer to break away from the bondage of his possessions and other false securities. This release -- this freedom to give fully and joyously of oneself and of one's belongings -- was the natural result of faith.
The second lesson of the community may be found in the way needs were being met. Luke's reference to the "breaking of bread" and his reference to the sharing of food in Acts 2:46 indicate that one form of early Christian sharing was table-fellowship. This not only met the material needs of some but broke down social structures. The Pharisee ate with the tax-gatherer, the rich with the poor, the educated with the illiterate. Need was recognized as deeper than what was lacking from one's pocket, and the response to need was more than a handout.
To diverge from the Jerusalem experience briefly to the subject of community models today, we should note the importance of the meeting of total needs in the forms chosen for our sharing. Too often we look to the Bible for a form, a model, to be superimposed upon our situation, whether it fits or not. The important question is not what structure early Christians chose, but what principles informed their choice of structure.
If we take the principle of meeting needs in an atmosphere of mutual respect and acceptance, one good structure might be the extended family with income sharing. If this structure, like any other structure, is understood in terms of Christian expression, then it too becomes voluntary and based upon the Spirit's guidance rather than upon law.
Finally, the meeting of material need was not restricted to the membership of one Christian group of a particular social-ethnic cut. We have already noticed the breakdown of the social distinctions within the Jewish culture as being part of the earliest forms of Christian sharing. In the context of Paul's collection, we see further barriers being broken down--the most important being that between the Jew and the Gentile. This was demonstrated in Paul's extension of social responsibility from within a particular community to one governing relationships between Christian communities. By the second century we see that Christians were meeting the needs of non-Christians as well. While conceding that Christians were probably slow in coming to the full understanding of their social responsibility, we see that the process at least began in Jerusalem. It seems that God's spirit manifested itself in the power to initiate change -- and not in instant perfection.
We have observed the sharing of the Jerusalem community--and more importantly, the principles which informed that sharing. As individuals, as members of small communities, and as members of the global community, we need to re-evaluate our sharing. Material needs today are certainly as great as those confronting the Jerusalem community, and probably greater. A comparable response to theirs would mean a radical simplification of our lives, a reversal of the policy of "getting everything we can" to "giving everything we can." Our incomes, our homes, our cars, our assets, liquid and real, must be set on the balances against starving Vietnamese, poorly sheltered Palestinians, disease-ridden victims of famine, and the neglected elderly eking out an existence on Social Security. It is only in the self-imposed simplifications of our lives that the meeting of needs, the closeness of community, and the joy of having one's securities in God begin to dawn.
Diane MacDonald had completed a masters degree in New Testament and was a Sojourners contributing editor when this article appeared.
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