"COMMUNES" IN ACTS
“COMMUNES” IN ACTS
Acts 2:42-47 "And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."
Acts 4:32-37 "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet."
Some, like Karl Marx (who was a masonic occultist and Jesuit coadjutor), have alleged these passages to teach "communism." Nothing could be further from the truth. There are many who quote Scripture as a proof text for their error. In fact, all of the crafty and compelling heretics and false teachers utilize Scripture. Karl Marx, a satanist, (for documentation see Marx and Satan by Richard Wurmbrand), was no better than his father the devil (John 8:44), for Satan himself quoted Scripture (Matthew 4:6; Luke 4:10-11). You can quote the Bible to prove anything when you are "handling the word of God deceitfully" (2 Corinthians 4:2) but you can never prove something that is true if you misquote it or remove it from its proper context. This practice of mishandling the word of God in order to contrive a new meaning is called "private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20). Such has been the practice of the Roman Catholic Institution¹ (which John prophetically calls "the great whore" Revelation 17:1). The misapplication of these passages by certain Catholics even predate Marx.
Now onto to the proper application. In order to find the proper interpretation of a text in the Bible the student of Scripture must practice the principle of "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). There are proper divisions in the Bible that must be noted in order to not make a mess of things. The majority of the heresies being taught today by cults and false teachers is truth misplaced. They are teaching something that was true or is going to be true for a different group of people. For example, the Seventh Day Adventists teach sabbath observance. Well that was a truth for the nation of Israel. The sabbath was a sign to the nation of Israel, for the nation began with signs (Romans 4:11; Exodus 4:8, 9, 17, 28, 30, 7:3, 8:23, 10:1-2 etc.) and "Jews require a sign" (1 Corinthians 1:22). The sabbath is no longer to be observed because we are in the Church Age and our apostle (Romans 11:13; 2 Timothy 1:11) writing to the Church omitted the commandment to observe the sabbath (Romans 13). Each student of the Bible should be cognizant of the fact that there are three groups of people in the Bible. Paul delineates between three groups, the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church (see 1 Corinthians 10:32). Every passage of the Bible is directed at one of these three groups. We must understand what audience the passage we are examining is aimed at so that we do not steal someone else's mail. Acts is a transitional book recording God's transition from offering the Jews His kingdom to the focus shifting to the Gentiles. Due to the transitional nature of the book of Acts, we must be extra careful when trying to extract doctrine out of it. Especially considering how the only Scriptures the apostles had in Acts 1-10 was the Old Testament. They were without the Pauline revelation and still attempting to sort some things out doctrinally. Interestingly enough we still find the same divisions between Jew, Gentile, and the Church within the books of Acts. These divisions are marked by three different questions asked within the book of Acts. In the second chapter of Acts we find Jews who were guilty of crucifying their Messiah asked, "men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter responds with, "repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:37-38). In the sixteenth chapter of Acts we find a Gentile ask, "sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas answer with, "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:30-31). Lastly, in the ninth chapter of Acts, a new believer (Paul) asks, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" God responds with "arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do" (Acts 9:6). Three different questions with three uniquely distinct answers thus, illustrating the doctrinal differences between the three groups in that transitional time period.
The text says that they "had all things common," from that comes communism, communal, commune, and common market. The difference between this "communism" (if you can even call it that) and Karl Marx's communism is Marx's was forced, this here is voluntary. Karl Marx's communism is for race and classes, this one is for converted Jews who are now Christians. This "communism" involves born again, Bible believing people who believed in private ownership of property (Acts 5:4, see also the parable of the laborers in the vineyard [Matthew 20] for the practical application of private ownership of business and property) and are looking for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ which they perceived was only a matter of days away (see Acts 1:6, 3:19-20). This "communism" has no government involvement or police enforcement. The communism of Marx is a different religion entirely. Some even say that Marxian communism in itself is a religion. Richard Wurmbrand said, "Marxism is a new religion, and it even 'uses' Scripture. Its main work, The Capital by Marx, is called 'the Bible of the working class.' Marx considered himself 'the Pope of Communism.'! (Wurmbrand 81).
Sam Gipp states in his commentary on Acts, "[these passages] are sometimes feared to be teaching communism. They are not. They are teaching "born-again" Judaism! There is little that is closer to a Jew than his possessions [for they are a physical people, dealt with physically by God in the Old Testament with physical prophecies of a future physical kingdom]. The fact these saved Jews were willing to sell all that they had and have all things common was definite evidence to the world that something had changed" (A Practical and Theological Study of the Gospel of John by Sam Gipp page 61, brackets added).
Acts chapter 2 is in a Jewish setting. Instead of trying to get back to a Jewish national experience in the book of Acts, Christians should progress further with an individual Christian experience (like Acts 8). I would contend that based on the immediate contexts and the dispensational contexts of both passages these verses would not doctrinally apply to a local Church in a literal manner. The people in these passages were in a completely different situation than we are in today and were looking for different events to come. These people here are expecting the advent to take place and the kingdom to be set up on this earth. We are not waiting for the advent to take place, we are waiting to be caught out of here (1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4). You can take some good spiritual applications out of these passages. Such as, we are to have all things common (in a spiritual sense) Acts 2:44, Christians are to receive the word gladly (verse 41), they are to be baptized after they received the truth (verse 41), they should continue in fellowship with fellow believers (verse 42), and spend time in prayer together (verse 42). They should meet together (verse 44), share together (verse 44) and witness daily (verse 47), and be thankful for material blessings (verse 46).
Another indication that shows these passages are transitional is due to the fact that the apostles were directly involved in the matter. The apostles (which are no longer around today despite the Catholic myth of apostolic succession) were going around and performing signs and wonders for the unbelieving Jews so that they could be believe and be saved (1 Corinthians 1:22, 14:22; John 4:48). Such a phenomenon was transitional and fully ceased by the end of the first century (2 Corinthians 12:5-10; 2 Timothy 4:20; 1 Timothy 5:23). The only way these passages could doctrinally apply to you is if you were a Jew converted after witnessing signs and wonders under the ministry of the apostles and currently had apostles present in order to give the money to for fair and equal distribution (Acts 4:35, 37). Don’t you see what kind of mess you get into if you try to apply this doctrinally today? That would mean that there are apostles today (hello Rome and Pentecostals), that the signs and wonders have not ceased, and that we should sell everything we have and give it to the apostles for equal distribution to the Church. I don’t know about you but that sounds like Soviet Catholicism or Jim Jones. Such a thing is obviously impossible to literally do today and it would be just about as easy for a person to meet all of the requirements of the passage as meeting all the requirements of to commit the “unpardonable sin,” more on that will be covered in future posts.
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