Godly fellowship from first principles - Sharing

Written by Nana Kwame Owusu-Afriyie.

"And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need" (NLT) Acts 2:44-45

"All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had" (NLT) Acts 4:32

The virtue of sharing can be summarised in this pithy and indisputable expression: "Sharing is caring". This beautiful act of benevolence was as natural to the early believers as breathing is to a living being. They had the rare mindset that all their material possessions belonged to the church and therefore whenever the church was in need of it, they were ever ready to liquidate it and bring the proceeds to the church. There was no class system in the early church. No special privileges for the clergy supplied by the laity. They, including the Christ-sent apostles, had everything in common.

In classical political discourse, we hear of terms like communism, socialism and the like. Communists may want to leverage the sharing principle exhibited by the early Christians to drive home their philosophy. However, the believers had institutionalised a better 'political' system - "commonism".

Sharers are very dear to God's heart (2 Corinthians 9:7b). In the Lord's church, sharers and givers never lack.

"And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others" (2 Corinthians 9:8).

In this fast-paced individualistic and materialistic world, the church seems to overlook the need of the saints. It ought not be so!

Godly fellowship from first principles - Introduction || More

Joomla SEF URLs by Artio

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site, while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). You can decide for yourself whether you want to allow cookies or not. Please note that if you reject them, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the site.