Biblical Communalism — The New Testament Christians They Don’t Imitate
Protestants attack the Gospel of Jesus Christ for requiring tithing. The New Testament Christians they claim to follow didn’t tithe — they sold everything and gave it to the apostles.
What Acts Actually Says
The New Testament describes the economic life of the earliest Christian community with considerable precision. It is not vague. Read it:
“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.”
Not some of their possessions. Not ten percent of their income. All things. The Greek is “koina” — communal, shared in common. This is not metaphorical. They sold property and goods and distributed the proceeds according to need.
Acts 4 is even more explicit:
“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... 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.”
They laid the proceeds at the apostles’ feet. Not at an elected committee’s feet. Not at a vote of the congregation’s feet. The apostles held and distributed the economic resources of the community. This was structured communalism under apostolic authority.
This is the early church that Protestants hold up as their model. Read your own source.
The Acts 5 Enforcement — Ananias and Sapphira
If there is any doubt about how seriously the early church took this communal standard, Acts 5 removes it. Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property. They kept back part of the price. They presented the remainder to the apostles as if it were the full amount.
Peter’s response:
“But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost.”
His wife arrived three hours later, told the same lie, and died as well. Two people died for withholding property from the apostolic economic community and lying about it. This was not optional participation in a voluntary fund. This was the standard of the early church, enforced at the highest possible level.
Notice also what Peter said: “while it remained, was it not thine own?” Ananias had the choice to keep it. The condemnation was not for keeping the property — it was for lying about the terms of the offering. The early church expected full consecration, and death was the consequence for pretending to offer it while actually withholding it.
Why Protestants Don’t Do This
The question is not rhetorical. It is diagnostic. Protestants claim the Bible as their sole authority. The Bible describes the early church practicing full economic communalism. Protestants do not practice full economic communalism. Why not?
The honest answers are revealing:
Answer 1: “That was cultural context, not universal command.” But this concedes the entire Sola Scriptura project. If the plain text of Acts 2 and 4 can be dismissed as contextual, what cannot be dismissed as contextual? On what hermeneutical principle does baptism remain mandatory but communal property sharing become optional? The answer is: whatever the interpreter finds convenient.
Answer 2: “It was an early experiment that didn’t work.” The text does not say it didn’t work. The text says it produced a community where “neither was there any among them that lacked.” That is not failure. That is the stated outcome.
Answer 3: Silence. Most Protestant critics of LDS economic practices have simply not thought about Acts 2 and 4 carefully in this context. The Bible they claim as their guide says what it says.
The Law of Consecration — More Biblical Than Protestant Practice
The Lord revealed a law of consecration in this dispensation. It was practiced in Missouri in the 1830s and remains an aspirational standard for the millennial period. It describes exactly what Acts 2 and 4 describe: a community of believers who consecrate their property for the common good, with distribution according to need, under the direction of authorized servants of God.
“And you are to be equal, or in other words, you are to have equal claims on the properties, for the benefit of managing the concerns of your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just — And all this for the benefit of the church of the living God, that every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents, yea, even an hundred fold, to be cast into the Lord’s storehouse, to become the common property of the whole church.”
Distribution “according to his wants and his needs” is precisely what Acts 4:35 describes: “distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ did not depart from the New Testament economic model. It restored it.
Tithing, which is the currently practiced standard, is actually less demanding than what the early church required. The critic who attacks a 10% tithe while the early church practiced 100% consecration has not read Acts carefully.
Verdict
The critic who attacks the economic practices of the restored Church while citing the New Testament as their authority has a problem. Their own source describes a community that practiced full communal economics, laid property at the apostles’ feet, and in which people died for withholding.
Protestant Christianity does not practice what Acts 2 and 4 describe. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does — in principle, in aspiration, and in the law of consecration that will be fully practiced in the Lord’s own time.
Sola Scriptura means “the Bible alone.” The Bible alone is not the guide of those who read Acts 2 and 4 and then quietly decide those verses apply to someone else. That is selective biblicism, not scripture as the sole authority.
The church that actually follows what Acts describes is the one being attacked. That should prompt a moment of reflection.