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Holding all things in common

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cap
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FollowingHim said:
I can see such a community working if the land & buildings are purchased in some form of a company / trust / partnership arrangement, where the original contributors retain their shareholding in the asset and associated voting power for at least a period of time (e.g. a decade minimum), and have the ability to sell up and leave with their assets if things turned pear-shaped.
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Been there, did that. Accepted biblical marriage and everything turned pear-shaped even though all those involved professed Christ as Lord and Saviour. My advise; don't ever go there. Be generous to those in genuine need but be diligent to take care of what/who God gives you. Cheers
 
Knowing some of that background, I'll just point out that despite things going pear-shaped someone in that situation is still better off than if they had given all their assets away to a church. Someone in a company / trust style situation can walk away with something - eventually, possibly only after a massive legal fight, and they might take out less than they put in, but they still technically own something. While in a commune structure such as Gloriavale, whatever you took in you are guaranteed to leave with nothing.

Wise words of caution nevertheless, I'm not disagreeing with you, just putting things in perspective. I agree this has many risks and complications also. But if you WERE to set up a commune anyway despite the risks, that's the least risky route to follow.
 
So there is this story in the Bible that seems to imply that the first believers had reached a state of holding all things in common and this is displayed or assumed to be a good thing, a thing future believers should try and achieve. But something happened, through lieing or persecution, or whatever it stopped. Now, it seems that in our place in history living holding all things in common is not really a functional thing and no one is really going to try to achieve it, mainly because it is too risky. So what was the point of revealing that as a community?
 
Cap said:
So what was the point of revealing that as a community?
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I think it’s probably because that text is a descriptive text, not necessarily a prescriptive one. It just tells us what happened. I don’t think there are any commands in the epistles for believers to start communes, just a place where the church in Jerusalem was mentioned as being in need.
I think the idea of a Christian commune is a beautiful idea, it just doesn’t work economically, in the long run.
 
IMO the biggest reason it doesnt work is because we do not function in a Melchizedek structure. We typically operate in an Aaronic or Levitical structure. This by its very nature lends itself to abuse of authority because it requires substitute authority from inception.

Most of these Christian communes are structured as a pseudo theocracy where a few rule in place of God. In contrast a Melchizedek structure demands an egalitarian Pater-archy where every man is king and priest over his own household and takes his orders directly from God. The assembly of Paters does things in unison and change comes by influence, reasoning and understanding Scripture, not politics or usurpation of another Paters authority.

Re:headship within the Melchizedek group, there may be one (or a quorum) of Paters appointed to serve as spokesmen for the assembly, however the correct perspective is that their “authority” is solely directed to address issues outside the group (As a delegate/steward) while inside the group their role is to serve as a servant to the unified assembly and at their pleasure.

A Melchizedek assembly, in my mind, is a blend of Pater-archy, (which necessitates private property rights and usage) brotherly love and care for all within the assembly, (which means that if there is a need it is cheerfully met) and an apparent desire for truth and unity, deferring one to another in assembly, but not in household headship.
 
Doesn't this decibe the ekklesia, what the church is suppose to be? Could this be what it being described as a community holding all things in common is actually the real church, the true body of believers. And that's why Ananias and Sapphira s killed because they were displaying hypocrisy in the true body of Christ?
 
I think we are close to 'holding all things in common' when we realise that we own nothing, and are simply stewards of God's assets.

When someone requires something, we happen to have what they need (food, clothing, money), and just hand it to them without seeing anything difficult or unusual in that gift. When we consider the assets of the church as a whole, and seek to minimise everybody's expenses, even if that means bearing a disproportionate portion ourselves.

When we can look at our van (for example) and think "God's van" not "my van". Then, when a brother needs transportation more than we do, we are happy to lend or even give it him. With no emotonal attachment to it at all, no feeling of loss, because we lost nothing, just passed God's asset to the next steward. We still have private property, in that we are fully responsible for the property we 'own' and must care for it as our own, and not throw it away for no reason. We will give an account to our Lord for our management of His assets. But we are happy to pass assets to another steward when it is truly right, because all assets are held in common by God.

It's a mindset that we may never fully achieve but is worth striving for.
 
Holding all things in common doesn't work, because people listen to the wrong voices.
Look at all the different churches, different denominations, all the division and fighting. If we can't hold it together to just stay in the same building and worship for 2 hours once a week, then there's no hope in hell of us managing to to actually live together in any sort of community.

My mother in law said something interesting the other day when we were telling her about Gloriavale. She wasn't very surprised, as she said they always turn out like that. Christian communes never work, there's always someone who starts sexually assulting others, or things get really dodgy in some other way.
With Gloriavale, it looks like the only way they're managing to function is through extreme fear and control, but people are still leaving.

There is no way of actually running something like this sensibly.
 
FollowingHim2 said:
Look at all the different churches, different denominations, all the division and fighting. If we can't hold it together to just stay in the same building and worship for 2 hours once a week, then there's no hope in hell of us managing to to actually live together in any sort of community.
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Consider the turnover of people just at this website. We have a constant inward flow of new people (which is awesome), and alongside that a smaller outward flow of people for various reasons (good and bad, amicable & not), and a cyclical flow of people who come and go. This is all natural and fine.

But imagine we'd all pooled our resources. Every new family brought in an average of $100,000 in assets, and everyone who left left with only the clothes on their backs... I can imagine things would get ugly rather quickly. And this is an awesome group. But when the stakes are higher...
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
I think it’s probably because that text is a descriptive text, not necessarily a prescriptive one. It just tells us what happened.
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I agree. The book of Acts is the book of Church history; how the Holy Spirit grew the Church starting in Jerusalem and then to Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:9). Just because something happens in one situation, and is recorded as an historic event, doesn't mean that it is to be repeated or practised in another time and place. Cheers
 
FollowingHim said:
I think we are close to 'holding all things in common' when we realise that we own nothing, and are simply stewards of God's assets.

When someone requires something, we happen to have what they need (food, clothing, money), and just hand it to them without seeing anything difficult or unusual in that gift. When we consider the assets of the church as a whole, and seek to minimise everybody's expenses, even if that means bearing a disproportionate portion ourselves.

When we can look at our van (for example) and think "God's van" not "my van". Then, when a brother needs transportation more than we do, we are happy to lend or even give it him. With no emotonal attachment to it at all, no feeling of loss, because we lost nothing, just passed God's asset to the next steward. We still have private property, in that we are fully responsible for the property we 'own' and must care for it as our own, and not throw it away for no reason. We will give an account to our Lord for our management of His assets. But we are happy to pass assets to another steward when it is truly right, because all assets are held in common by God.

It's a mindset that we may never fully achieve but is worth striving for.
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This already happens in America. We don't own anything, the government does. Try not paying your taxes and see what happens. So we already live with the mindset we don't own anything, we just don't know it.
 
I don't think holding all things in common is something that is supposed to "work", as if holding all things in common were something that could fix anything or really produce anything. Acts 3 and 4 are a wild ride. Peter and John performed a massive miracle, argued the sanhedren to a standstill, and then prayed that God would work through them in miraculous things, and all the believers were shaken and filled with the Holy Spirit, leading into them being of one heart and one mind.

Holding all things in common was just a natural outflow of that, and that was only sustained by God's powerful grace, prompting those who had lands and houses to periodically sell them off so that those who had need were relieved.

Taking a group (any group) of believers who really wanna lead that 1st church life and having them just decide to have all things in common will be a horrid science experiment; where we see the disastrous effects of what happens when a group of people who are NOT of one heart and mind share a common purse. I mean this was a society of voluntary communists presented as functional: No less a miracle than manna from heaven.

I want to hold all things in common like they did that, but the road to producing that fruit is more complicated than that.
 
FollowingHim2 said:
I wouldn't recommend the place at all, they only achieve what they do out of installing fear.
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I certainly do not know enough about them to recommend them. I do think the community is interesting and instructive if only for the lesson that you do not have to do everything like everyone else.

Do you really think that the only way to achieve the community that they have built where everyone has a role and there is no need for money is by fear?

If true, that makes me sad. I like to think the human potential with Jesus as the heart and spirit is more than that. I like to think that love could achieve things far more than fear ever could.
 
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Slumberfreeze said:
I don't think holding all things in common is something that is supposed to "work", as if holding all things in common were something that could fix anything or really produce anything. Acts 3 and 4 are a wild ride. Peter and John performed a massive miracle, argued the sanhedren to a standstill, and then prayed that God would work through them in miraculous things, and all the believers were shaken and filled with the Holy Spirit, leading into them being of one heart and one mind.

Holding all things in common was just a natural outflow of that, and that was only sustained by God's powerful grace, prompting those who had lands and houses to periodically sell them off so that those who had need were relieved.

Taking a group (any group) of believers who really wanna lead that 1st church life and having them just decide to have all things in common will be a horrid science experiment; where we see the disastrous effects of what happens when a group of people who are NOT of one heart and mind share a common purse. I mean this was a society of voluntary communists presented as functional: No less a miracle than manna from heaven.

I want to hold all things in common like they did that, but the road to producing that fruit is more complicated than that.
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But, what if the wild ride was because they were in that state? What if they could do all those things was because they were in such a common state of mind and God blessed them for it.

I'm actually thinking that living a common life physically is not the point, it may be an outcome but not really possible. But if it is possible it is only because the spiritual side of living in common is so strong that just happens. Imagine a place, a group, or a church, that everyone gets along, they think spiritual in common, if there are disagreements they go to the word and come to an agreement on how to view things knowing that the truth learned is God's truth and not an individual truth that the majority of the group has decided to believe, that tend to create factions within that group.
 
Cap said:
But, what if the wild ride was because they were in that state? What if they could do all those things was because they were in such a common state of mind and God blessed them for it.
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Yes, they were just totally sold out.
We are not.
 
People in this thread are way way too concerned about not loosing their mammon.

steve said:
But I cannot imagine a scenario where I would be willing to hold all things in common.
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I can, but not with the quality of Christians that one finds in this country.

FollowingHim said:
However, the serious issue with holding all in common is that you can hand all your assets to the church thinking they're going in a good direction, then they turn bad and use your own assets for evil, and you leave with nothing but the clothes on your back. Gloriavale was founded on the farm of a man who gave it to the community, then left with nothing, his family inheritence and even his children gone to the group. It's just too risky when you have large assets at stake.
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That is only a problem for the founders. Most people join communes with little in the way of assets.

In the mean time, we all leave this world with the same physical assets we brought into it. It is best we worry more about how to use what we have at the moment for the Christ's Kingdom than about how to preserve them.

Statistically speaking, assuming y'all follow the norm, most of you have nothing anyway. Oh you think you have much. But after taking debt into consideration; most of you have almost nothing. And if that's not true of you, it is still true of most people.

FollowingHim said:
have the ability to sell up and leave with their assets if things turned pear-shaped.
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Hard to do that without destroying the community.

FollowingHim said:
In day-to-day matters, once again I can see it working with all giving voluntarily of what they have (food, clothing etc) as per people's needs. But once you get to full communist redistribution of everything then things are going to rapidly deteriorate.
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Not necessarily. The Hutterites do it successfully. As have several secular groups. So it can be done.

FollowingHim2 said:
Holding all things in common doesn't work
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It worked for the early believers. So what is wrong with us that so many think it can't work? And how can we change ourselves?
 
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