The Spirit of Unity (Acts 4:32)

Acts 4:32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.

Imagine a home with four children. One was a girl from the wife’s first marriage, and another was a boy from the husband’s first marriage. One boy was from the couple’s marriage, and another girl was adopted from another country.

Now come Christmas time, the mother’s mother piled all kinds of gifts on the little girl from the first marriage. She had twice as much as anyone else. The adopted girl was given a lot of hand-me-down clothes and toys from friends at the adoption group. The boy from the couple’s marriage tended to get a lot of stuff because he was the baby of the family. The dad’s first son was rough and tumble and tended to break a lot of his things. So the kids got a lot of stuff, but it was unequally, or perhaps unfairly, distributed.

However, in this family all the kids shared. They played together all the time, and no one complained about who had more or less. The one boy tended to break lots of toys, but no one complained. The girl with twice as many toys shared with the others because she knew how she would want to be treated if they switched places. The adopted girl shared her used things with the other kids and they shared their new things with her.

Okay, now, back to the real world. It doesn’t work like that does it? We are possessive. We are consumed with fairness. We feel like people should be in dire straits before we should give them anything, and we judge who we feel is worthy of help and who isn’t. We think that we are being generous when our giving isn’t even enough to impact our lifestyle. We think sharing is letting someone use something of ours as long as they return it quickly and in the same condition. We spend more on eating out than we give to the work of God or the needy. And we hardly think twice about any of it.

Here’s a good verse on this, with a couple of minor modernizations added.
1 Timothy 6:17-19 Command those who [live in the United States and have a standard of living well above 90% of all the people who have ever lived] not to be arrogant nor to [put a bunch of hope into how nice their cars and houses are, how full their savings accounts are, and just how comfortable they will be in their old age], which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. NIV

If we lived out 1 Timothy 6:17-19, Acts 4:32 would not seem so shockingly strange to us. We don’t act like siblings united in one family under the headship of our Father. We act more like competitors on the Successful Life Reality Show. How sad that must make our Father.