What Does Acts 2:44 Mean?

(44) **All that believed were together. . . .**—The writer dwells with a manifest delight on this picture of what seemed to him the true ideal of a human society. Here there was a literal fulfilment of his Lord’s words (Luke 12:33), a society founded, not on the law of self-interest and competition, but on sympathy and self-denial. They had all things in common, not by a compulsory abolition of the rights of property (see Acts 5:4), but by the spontaneous energy of love. The gift of the Spirit showed its power, not only in tongues and prophecy, but in the more excellent way of charity. It was well that that inimitable glow of love should manifest itself for a time to be a beacon-light to after ages, even if experience taught the Church in course of time that this generous and general distribution was not the wisest method of accomplishing permanent good, and that here also a discriminate economy, such as St. Paul taught (2Thessalonians 3:10; 1Timothy 3:8), was necessary as a safe-guard against abuse. It was, we may perhaps believe, partly in consequence of the rapid exhaustion of its resources thus brought about, that the Church at Jerusalem became dependent for many years upon the bounty of the churches of the Gentiles. (See Note on Acts 11:29.)