Was The Early Church Socialist, Even Communist? Series

Jesus told His disciples, "Blessed are you poor" as Luke records it, and Matthew writes "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Filled with the Holy Spirit, the early Christians, or many of them, decided to take Jesus literally. They pooled their resources, as Luke records in the Acts of the Apostles, and from the central treasury took and spent what they needed to live and work and worship. In fact, Luke paints an idyllic picture of community life, as members sold what they had, both real estate and personal property, and divided the money among the members of the church.

A great example was then recorded by Luke. Joseph, who was surnamed "Bar-nabas" or "son of encouragement" by the community, sold some land and "laid the money at the feet of the apostles." He truly put his money where his testimony was.

But that was not the only anecdote recorded by Luke, who was certainly conducting his research in Jerusalem, perhaps just before he and Paul were taken over a period of many months to Rome. Among the other stories of the early Church he heard was one about a tragic couple, Ananias and Sapphira. It was a tale of bad intentions bringing bad fruit.

Ananias owned some property, too. With the agreement of his wife, he sold property and brought most of the proceeds to Peter, but lied--maybe to win the approval of the apostles and community--telling them that the sum was the full price of the land. Peter saw right through it, either warned by a broker or under the influence of the Holy Spirit. He discerned the real problem was not so much financial as it was spiritual. Ananias "contrived this deed in [his] heart," lying not so much to the community as to the Holy Spirit that filled that community. Sapphira came in presently and did the same thing. They both dropped dead. Their hearts were spiritually warped; their priorities, upside-down. So when their lie was discovered, their hearts stopped. It was an object lesson in truth.

From time to time, superficial bible teachers look at the picture sketched out by Luke of the early church, rightly call that an example of socialism, even communism, and declare that today's Christian sins by not embracing that economic and political system. Their opponents point to several twentieth and twenty-first century examples like the Soviet Union, communist China, Cuba and Venezuela to demonstrate that socialism and communism have never succeeded, but there, right in the fifth chapter of Acts, we see what looks like God's stamp of approval on that system. What must we think and do?

First of all, we have to see the profound difference between the early Church's communitarian philosophy and more modern secular systems of communism. The early Christians were, as Acts attests, of "one heart and one mind." Respecting each other's free will, they did not force anyone to sell property or contribute it to the common pot. Peter emphasized that free-will respect in his little sermon to the lying couple. When we read the histories of despotic socialism and communism, we see forcible seizure of property, both real and personal, and forced sales and evictions of owners. Such actions are very clearly the opposite of the nonviolent and humane operation of Christ and of the early Christian community.

Second, we must consider the documented result of the communist functioning of the early Jerusalem community. At some point in the early years, probably before the year 45 AD, Herod killed the leader James and arrested the other leader, Peter, who was miraculously sprung from prison by an angel. But the result was a dispersion of much of the Jerusalem community. Clearly, those who were left in that city were not only poor, they were impoverished. St. Paul, in both his letters to the Corinthians and in his letter to the Romans, mandates a collection to be taken up for the poor of the Jerusalem church. It seems obvious that there was not enough property sold to sustain the Jerusalem Christians. They were bankrupt, and dependent on collections taken from churches all over the Roman world to stay alive.

In other words, with the best intentions--surely to imitate Christ--they ate up their capital and suffered the results for years. There is no evidence in Acts or the letters of Paul and the other apostles that any other church tried to imitate the communist phase of the Christian experiment. In fact, in Paul's pastoral letter to Timothy, he insisted that anyone who would not take care of his own family was worse than an unbeliever.

Now in our own imitation of Christ, what should we do? The early community did have a mission, and they did it quite well apart from their finances. We should follow their example, each day and each week meet for prayer, especially scriptural prayer, reading from the Word of God and learning how to follow Christ, and the breaking of the bread. Into that we contribute from our own earnings for the support of the church, relief of the poor and support of missionary and charitable works around the world. That simple system has literally changed the world for the better over two thousand years. Yes, it will be much better when Jesus returns to raise us up and make a new world under His loving reign, but until then, that seems to be the only Christian way to operate.