BRUCE C WEARNE looks at what Acts 4 says about the gathering of this new “community of believers”...
Now the entire throng of those believing were united in heart and soul, no one claiming anything he possessed as his own property. Everything they owned was held in common. Such was the great power by which the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, grace in great supply upon them all. None were in need among them, since those who were owners of lands or houses sold them, bringing the proceeds from the sale to lay at the apostles’ feet. There was a distribution made to each as any had need. In this a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph who was surnamed by the apostles, Barnabas (meaning, ‘Son of Encouragement’), sold a field belonging to him, and he too brought the money to lay it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts 4:32-37/transliteration by Bruce C Wearne)
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UNITED “HEART AND SOUL”: The “throng” of those who believed held everything in common. PICTURE: Justine Furmanczyk/www.freeimages.com
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Jesus’ disciples were growing in number. Their life together was refreshed. They began to understand that they had been caught up in a new creation of the Almighty, with something the Earth had been waiting millennia to see. This was a way of life proclaiming the Lord’s gracious rule. Jesus, Messiah and Lord, had brought a new way of life so believers in the Almighty could live their lives in every detail as members of God’s community of love.
There was a sense of urgency. There was a spirit of boldness. This boldness was manifested when Peter and John fronted the Sanhedrin. But it also showed itself in the way these believers, men and women, boys and girls, old and young, could boldly and without reservation offer help and assistance to each other. They had found a way of offering themselves to each other without becoming enslaved to each other, without enslaving others with their new found freedom.
Jesus’ teaching had taken root. This was indeed the “good soil” He had spoken about in His parable of the sower. This was the yeast making its impact felt throughout the entire loaf. This was the salt, the sweet smelling savour, added to the living sacrifice to be offered up to the Almighty. In sum, this was a community in which each encouraged the other. Their task was to offer it all up to the Lord, to live the entirety of their human creaturely existence before Him.
It is almost as an aside that Luke introduces “Uncle Barnabas”, a Levite from Cyprus. We will get to know him as the uncle of the writer of Mark’s Gospel. Barnabas’ generosity quickly earned him the nick-name of “encourager”. Luke is telling us that these things happened in the lives of the earliest followers of Jesus, because the Holy Spirit had prepared the soil in which the good seed could sprout and bring a thirty-fold, sixty-fold or one hundred-fold harvest. But there was more to do. The word still had to be broadcast far and wide.
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