Coming from a large family, I’ve learned the value of sharing. Sure, when you’re eight or nine years old, sharing a new toy or sharing the last chocolate chip cookie doesn’t seem like a great idea, but later in life, sharing makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t take long for us to figure out that there are people who have and people who don’t have. Whether it’s money, possessions, family, or love, it’s pretty clear that there isn’t an even distribution of anything among us. So it is up to individuals to share.
At least that’s the way it was in the early church. Acts 2:44-47 says that “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Sometimes we miss these details. Acts 2 starts with a great sermon, so good that 3000 people were baptized. After that, Acts 2:42 tells us that they adopted new spiritual disciplines, and everyone was amazed by the transformation. But it didn’t stop there. The new church didn’t hunker down and wait for Jesus to return. They continued to live their lives, but they were different lives. They shared what they had with everyone.
They shared their possessions, giving to whomever had a need. They shared their time, meeting together daily in the temple courts. They shared meals together in their homes. They shared their joy, and apparently they shared their faith because “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Let us not forget that the early church, upon receiving the best gift ever, salvation through Jesus, shared everything they had so that others would be saved.