The Transfer of Ownership and Partnership with God
Acts 2:42-47
Acts 2:44-45 records that the first believers in Jerusalem had everything in common and sold their possessions to meet each other’s needs. This passage intends to challenge us and provide a holy burden on us. Although discouraging from a worldly sense, following up with this challenge can ultimately lead to an increase in faith and spiritual growth. To fully understand how we can grow from this passage, we need to consider the spiritual intention behind selling your possessions and sharing with others.
First, this passage teaches us about the transfer of ownership to God. The church of Jerusalem consisted of people ranging from rich to poor. Proverbs sometimes trace poverty to laziness. Alternatively, Isaiah, Amos, and Micah describe the poor as victims of injustice. Wealth is treated the same way, sometimes attributed as a blessing and sometimes the fruit of greed. Scripture gives no simple answer about wealth and poverty, but it is clear about our responsibility to take care of the poor. What both Testaments say consistently is that there will always be poor people among us, and caring for them is our responsibility. So how did the early Christians carry that responsibility, and what were they thinking as they gave? They believed that nothing was theirs to begin with, that everything already belonged to God. Ownership had been transferred, and radical sharing was simply the effect of it. Acts 4:32 says no one claimed that anything belonging to him was his own. Barnabas, a Levite from Cyprus, sold his field and laid the money at the apostles' feet because his life already belonged to Christ. Paul makes the same point in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: we are not our own, we were bought with a price. The word he uses, agorazo, is the ordinary word for purchasing a slave in the marketplace. When we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, ownership of our life passes from sin to God. So the real question is not whether we could give everything away, but whether our life has been handed over to Jesus.
Second, once we understand that everything belongs to God, we are free to give joyfully. In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira sold property and brought part of the proceeds while claiming it was all of it. Peter’s rhetorical questions in Acts 5:4 make clear that the land was genuinely theirs before the sale and the money was theirs to direct after it. Their sin was lying in the presence of God. Paul never asked other churches to sell everything, only to share, and 2 Corinthians 9:7 says each gives as he decides in his heart, not under compulsion. John Wesley captured it well: gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can. As a young man, John set a modest living budget, and as his income grew over the years he never raised his budget. He directed the increase into giving rather than into a more comfortable life. Most of us do the opposite, letting our spending rise with every raise. We can practice giving by tithing our income and our time. Tithing is not a claim that one tenth belongs to God and nine tenths belong to us. It is a confession that all ten tenths are His, and that the nine He leaves in our hands are entrusted to us to manage well.
Discussion Questions
1. If God asked whether the ownership of your life has been transferred to Him, how would you answer? What are you still holding onto?
2. If your next raise went entirely to giving instead of spending, what would have to change — and what does your reaction reveal?
3. What would a tithe of your time look like in this season of life?
