Christians Giving up All Possessions

[Zendasi]

Obviously you have not given up all possessions, or you would not be posting here from your computer. Why not?

I don't think it would be obvious for communes to completely lack computers. However, you happen to be correct. I'm still studying this topic so it is possible that my mind will be changed. Also, in most cases I think giving up your possessions is something you should do after careful consideration as Luke 14:28-33 suggests. There are communes that turn into cults and vice versa so it's important to be careful. There are also some things I want to get figured out with my career before I do this because I would like to have something significant to contribute to a commune.

Thanks to everyone for their critiques and constructive criticisms. I appreciate it when people can disagree civilly with such a controversial and radical idea. Looking closely at the grammar of Matthew 28:20 was especially something I needed to be reminded to do. Another thing I forgot to mention was Peter claiming he had given up everything alongside with them speaking of "Peter's house" may be explained by the concept of usufruct that Schnabel speaks of (although I haven't found other sources to back him up)

". . . In Qumran, the surrender of one's property upon entry in the Qumran community was obligatory. The paradox that the members of the Essene community are said to contribute all their wealth, while they still appear to have retained private property, can be explained as follows: Jews in the ancient world did not regard the adjectives "private" and "public," when related to property, as mutually exclusive as we do today. Property that an individual "had" could be understood to "be" both for the individual and for the group. Thus, "the donor offers the right of usufruct to another but retains the right of ownership," a concept that explains the practice of shared property at Qumran. . . "
https://books.google.com/books?id=fj...ufruct&f=false

His footnote states: "The term "usufruct" is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the right of temporary possession, use, or enjoyment of the advantages of the property belonging to another, so far as may be had without causing damage or prejudice to this""

Eckhard J Schnabel is also someone who wrote a commentary on Acts that disagrees with the idea of them literally having everything in common but he only breifly talks about the Church in Acts so I do need to check out Craig Bloomberg book at some point. I may post back here later with a paper on the topic from the perspective I have but it needs some more editing first. I will welcome critiques on that as well. Thanks.

[Leonhard]

Giving up everything and following Jesus in such a radical way is not for everyone. But I do believe its an especially blessed way of following Christ.

Like the others here I don't think it implies socialism, or implies that all Christians ought to live that way.

[rogue06]

Craig Blomberg, who wrote a book length analysis of the roles of possessions with Christians, did an analysis of Acts 2. I've read so much of his that I can't remember which book this particular analysis was in but he concluded that Acts 2 was probably not a situation of selling all goods at once but rather as an individual need occurred.

(His conclusion was that Christians ought to hold possessions much less loosely than they do in Western Christianity, but that the Bible as a whole balances this ascetic outlook somewhat with reminders that material blessings are nonetheless a gift from God.)

Was it Neither Poverty nor Riches? That's where he wrote that it was a periodic selling of property (noting the phrase "from time to time" used by the NIV translation in Acts 4:34) stating that:

cf. the reference to the home of John Mark in Acts 12:12) all the way to those who were still living at a very basic level.³³ But the church was committed to taking the principle of Deuteronomy 15:4 very seriously: 'there should be no poor among you' (F. Martin 1972: 46).

[Zendasi]

Was it Neither Poverty nor Riches? That's where he wrote that it was a periodic selling of property (noting the phrase "from time to time" used by the NIV translation in Acts 4:34) stating that:

cf. the reference to the home of John Mark in Acts 12:12) all the way to those who were still living at a very basic level.³³ But the church was committed to taking the principle of Deuteronomy 15:4 very seriously: 'there should be no poor among you' (F. Martin 1972: 46).

Yeah, I've looked at that before. Interestingly the theme "according to need" doesn't give me a normal generous community vibe. It reminds me of this, although obviously anachronistic:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr...ng_to_his_need (just to be clear I'm not at all advocating marxism :) )

I think this is also the fallacy of division: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division Just because the group was continually selling their possessions does not mean that individuals are involved in the same continuous activity. The church in Acts may not have formed all at once and indeed it says that daily people were added to their number (Acts 2:47). If they sold their possessions upon joining this would mean that every day there would have been a chance of someone joining with property to sell. This is only one way to think of this as working. Also there may be people participating in worship with them that hadn't fully become part of the church or sold their possessions yet. In Acts 5 the casual people who joined them on solomon's porch are scared away by the incident with Annanias and Saphira. I'm getting this from a study I did on the words translated "added" and "joined" in YLT here. "Added" seems to be the more intimate term:

11 and great fear came upon all the assembly, and upon all who heard these things.
12 And through the hands of the apostles came many signs and wonders among the people, and they were with one accord all in the porch of Solomon;
13 and of the rest no one was daring to join himself to them, but the people were magnifying them,
14 (and the more were believers added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women,)
(Acts 5 YLT)

EDIT: "added" is also used in Acts 2:41 and Acts 2:47 https://studybible.info/search-inter...4369/start/240

[NorrinRadd]

Keener says this in his Bible Background Commentary:

Note that he is clearly not saying that everyone gave everything away; they met needs as they arose, and those with suitable homes kept them and made them available as meeting places.

[Zendasi]

Keener says this in his Bible Background Commentary:

Note that he is clearly not saying that everyone gave everything away; they met needs as they arose, and those with suitable homes kept them and made them available as meeting places.