Does the New Testament Promote Socialism?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Acts 2:44-45, Acts 2, Acts 2:42, Acts 4, Acts 5, Acts 12, Romans 16, 1 Corinthians 16

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--does-the-new-testament-promote-socialism
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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no I don't believe the Bible is trying to tell us that we should adopt communal living or Socialism or communism or something like that um I don't think it's wrong perhaps for some people to try to establish some kind of farm or communal existence if they so desire but I don't think that is the direct fulfillment of scripture uh what what's going on in Acts 2 you have the birthday of the Christian church and you have the the new church presented as a paradigm as an example but it's a temporary situation so you have to understand that thousands of Jews had come from different countries um there are 15 different nationalities mentioned in Acts 2.

they'd come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost and at that point thousands were converted the initial 120 disciples plus 3 000 on that first day so obviously many of them were from these other countries um and they were planning to go back to those countries but probably many stayed in Jerusalem be to be part of this new church they were expecting the Lord to come back I don't think they had any idea that it would be 2 000 years or more they probably thought in a few weeks so initially you had thousands of Believers from different countries staying in Jerusalem waiting for the Lord to come back well after a few days you have practical Logistics where are they going to sleep what are they going to eat and then you also had many of the early Christians are very poor and so the Bible explains that the Christians had so much love so much Unity so much working together that as these needs arose people would say well I have a piece of land I'll sell it I'll give it to the apostles and you can split it up whoever needs it these people from another country or these very poor people you know and somebody said well well you know I've got a maybe an extra house or I've got a big house I don't need I'll sell it I'll move in with my son or I'll buy a smaller house and so Acts 2 describes the sacrificial giving in unity it also describes some other they continued steadfastly Acts 2 42 in the apostles Doctrine and fellowship breaking of bread prayers so they prayed together they ate together and I think that included the Lord's Supper but also meals together Fellowship which which we do it is appetite to to have dinner before or after church uh or within reason you know good steward over the body so they continued in prayer they couldn't worship they went from house to house into the temple so it's giving a holistic picture to say they were so unified that they gave sacrificially they gave to help their brothers and sisters now to jump from that to say they all joined a commune or they sold all their homes and they all bought a piece of land and they all moved in together uh that's not correct because in Acts 4 you find them doing it again so apparently somebody still kept some houses then in Acts 5 you find ananias and Sapphira who sold a piece of property and they lied about what they were giving the Apostle Peter made it very clear it was your own you could do what you wanted with it and after it was sold you could have kept whatever amount of money you wanted but the fact that you lied the Judgment of God has come and then even later Acts chapter 12 you find the early church having prayer meeting in the house of John Mark's mother so at least John Mark's mother still had a house and of course the standard model if you read Romans 16 and many other passages there were churches in different houses so Romans 16 probably is a referencing five house churches in the city of Rome uh then you you read first and second Corinthians Paul talks about raising up offerings to help the poor in Jerusalem he talks about supporting him in missions First Corinthians 16 talks about collecting money once on the first day of the week so presumably they all met on the first day they would bring an offering and save it up so if they're all living communally uh they they they wouldn't need to be taking weekly offerings so as the church moved from those early days you also have to remember that that early situation didn't last very long because persecution came it scattered them to many cities and you also have to remember in ad70 the Romans would conquer and Destroy Jerusalem God knew that the early Believers didn't know that so those who try to maintain all their possessions and pass it on to their descendants and a mass personal wealth and create Estates all that would have been destroyed God knowing that prompted them to invest in the kingdom of God where it would be a lasting value so that doesn't necessarily mean that would be a model for 2000 years all countries of the world so I think what we learned from acts is sacrificial giving Unity supporting the work of God the kingdom of God supporting the poor especially those in the church But as time goes on you have local churches you have houses to live in you collect weekly offerings you support the ministry and that's the model we follow now let me just say a word about capitalism while we as the church are don't promote any particular political party or secular system I do believe the basic thought of capitalism is based on private property and free market and that is based on Christian principles because what you see in the scripture is every person is accountable to God individually for their own decisions every person has unique worth before God should be treated as an individual and even though the Middle East was a communal let's say more I shouldn't say communal but the the culture was more Collective is the term that sociologists use a collectivist culture where you think of the needs of the group you think of your family you think of your tribe you think of your neighborhood you think of your Society more than yourself whereas Western culture is based on individualism so there is a balance there but the total collectivist idea is not consistent with scripture because scripture holds each person accountable before God as an individual and then Genesis talks about earning your bread from the sweat of your brow so and and Paul even talks about if you don't work you don't eat so there's this principle you should be responsible if you're able-bodied of course and so forth you're responsible to earn your own living to pay your own way so to speak well that also indicates that we should respect private properties if I work hard for something for my bread my food I deserve to keep that bread well if I earn some money and I'm able to buy a car or a house that represents my work it's not your work so for you or for the government to take that car from me you're not just taking something I possess you're taking part of my life you're taking part of my the sweat of my brow you're taking part of my time that I invested in so respecting private property really goes back to respecting the individual and respecting individual labor and a socialism and communism are based on an idealistic philosophy that doesn't work in the real world um from each according to his ability to each according to his needs it sounds great you know if you can whoever can work you work and and whatever you need will give you what you need but it fails because it doesn't respect the individual and it fails because it depends on an idealistic view of human nature when actually humans are sinful so maybe in heaven we can all share and it doesn't matter but on Earth if you have a system where if you can work you need to work hard but uh whether you work or not will give you what you need well that it creates a perverse incentive which has been proven in Communists and social Societies in the 21st century we did a massive worldwide experiment and we proved that it doesn't work because collectivists farms in the Soviet Union where everybody had to work together would only produce a fraction of the output but when they allowed people to have private Gardens they are vastly more productive than these big Collective Farms because people on the collective Farms they knew if I don't work hard it doesn't make any difference how much I get but in my private Garden I get exactly what I put into it and so uh a socialistic or or a communal system rewards the inefficient and the lazy and the slacker and the cheater and it punishes the hard worker whereas capitalism um I'm not saying it's perfect because we're in a perfect world so no system is perfect but done right with respect for individual labor respect for private property free market with regulations to in you know to to minimize theft and fraud and cheating and and pollution that's unnecessary or detrimental you know there have got to be safeguards so no system is perfect but when you put all the safeguards capitalism has proven to get the maximum in a positive way out of people and it's it's uh maximum productivity maximum creativity new invention but also People's Choice so they get to choose what they value if they don't want to work extra they don't have to it's a trade-off and some people make good choices and some people make bad choices but the point is instead of the government making your choices for you the individual can make choices what do I value my time my money uh new possessions or you know I get to choose and allocate and the whole idea of the free market is no matter how smart somebody is no one person no oligarchy no group of experts no governmental bureaucracy can perfectly allocate all across the world who needs how much food here and who needs how much clothing here and who needs this uh Machinery here nobody can figure that out but the market does it automatically through prices if you don't have enough of a certain commodity the price goes up and so people flock to meet that need and so the market is constantly regulating itself you know without any any Mastermind you know the needs and the resources are allocated as they should be now obviously because of people's fraud and greed and sin that can be distorted and that's why you need to have government and you need to have ethics and you need to have the rule of law but I guess what I'm summarizing is saying actually respecting uh private property free market and individual labor is really based in biblical Concepts and I lived in I grew up in Korea South Korea was a dictatorship North Korea was 20 miles away it was a Communist dictatorship and we saw firsthand the difference even today communist North Korea is a very poor state of development with frequent famines with Much Death practically no Liberty whereas South Korea has become one of the marvels of the world with a vibrant 21st century highly technological economy it's a perfect social experiment because here you had two groups of people with the same culture the same background the same education the same resources of anything North Korea had more resources but yet two different models of economics and the results are drastically different well to summarize the role the Church of course is is not economic but we can say that acts 2 teaches the principles of unity Fellowship supporting the poor supporting Mission supporting the church but it doesn't teach us that we should live communally or that we should adopt a socialistic or communist model for the economy