Socialism absent from book of Acts

“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.”

— Acts 4:32

Thus does our author, Luke the Troublemaker, begin a section of his story that makes modern Christians man the ramparts and get ready to fight.

By this time in the book of Acts, the Christian church has grown to number in the thousands. It has become a society within the larger society, an alternate community. This passage gives us a glimpse into how that little society governed itself, and here’s the rub: That government looks a little socialistic.

I mean, you’ve got people renouncing their private property rights, apparently; and then all the goods are distributed to each according to their needs. I borrowed a Marxist turn of phrase there, although this is not what Karl envisioned.

Bible believing Christian, you can step back from the ledge. There’s not a Marxist molecule in my body, nor is there one in this account. Karl Marx believed in eliminating the private ownership of “the means of production.” This meant factories, mines, farms, and such. More specifically, it meant land ownership. He thought that the collective should own all the land.

This portion of Acts, which continues through the tragic narrative about Ananias and Sapphira, in fact goes out of its way to affirm that no one eliminated property rights. Land owners remained free to do with their land what they willed. The point Luke made is that their hearts had been so transformed, and knit together in love for the Lord Jesus, that they considered their own property a resource for helping each other. No one forced this on them or coerced it out of them.

So — whew! That was a close one.

It’s not socialism we’re seeing here. (It’s closer to anarcho-capitalism, but that’s a can of worms for another time.) As we continue reading the rest of the New Testament, we’ll see that the situation described in Acts 4-5 is not mandated anywhere. That is, the apostles never tell us that our churches should look like that one did.

Wait a second, though. They kind of did, just not in so many words.

What would our churches look like if everyone followed Paul’s instruction to “count others more significant than yourselves?” Or, what if we meditated more on 1 John 3:17: But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

We might then be on the brink of re-forming the sort of alternative society that turns the world upside down, in all of our churches. If you don’t like the way the world is going, this is the biblical remedy. Preach the gospel, the good news of a risen Savior, and then, in your actual life, prove that following him really works. Show the outsiders, who from time to time look into your alternate community, that we have answers.

They will know we are his by our love for each other.

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

[email protected]