Acts 2:44-45

These early believers had frequent contact with each other. Communal living was voluntary and temporary in the Jerusalem church (Acts 4:32; Acts 4:34-35; Acts 5:4); it was not forced socialism or communism. No other New Testament church practiced communal living to the extent that the Jerusalem Christians did. The New Testament nowhere commands communal living, and Acts does not refer to it after chapter five. [Note: See Brian Capper, "The Palestinian Cultural Context of Earliest Christian Community of Goods," in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting; Vol. 4: The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting, pp. 323-56; and Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, "The Cenacle-Topographical Setting for Acts 2:44-45," in ibid., pp. 303-22.]

The believers’ willingness to sell their property (real estate, cf. Acts 5:37) and personal possessions to help others in need demonstrated true Christian love. One writer argued that Luke’s portrait of the early church was true to reality and not an idealized picture. [Note: Alan J. Thompson, "Unity in Acts: Idealization or Reality?" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 51:3 (September 2008):523-42.] Others have disputed this claim. [Note: E.g., S. S. Bartchy, "Community of Goods in Acts: Idealization or Social Reality?" in The Future of Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester, pp. 309-18).] The believers were probably giving to non-believers as well as to their Christian brethren, but what Luke stressed was their sacrificial giving to one another. Beside Christian love it may have been their hope that Jesus Christ would return very soon that motivated them to live as they did. Furthermore since Jesus had predicted judgment on Jerusalem, what was the use of keeping property?