The community of believers was of one mind and one heart. None of them claimed anything as their own; rather, everything was held in common.
—Acts 4:32
Poet and CAC staff member Drew Jackson reflects on how the first Christians cared for one another:
The book of Acts is all about the early community of Jesus’ followers that formed after Jesus’ ascension. Communities of followers of the Way—as they’re called—start to form and what we find in Acts 4 are descriptions of what started to happen in these communities. Another way to say it is that this is what it looked like when people began to experience transformation.
The first thing it says is that the people are of one heart and one mind. The people begin to have a new way of relating to one another that is based on oneness and not separateness, which, in and of itself, is a radical shift in consciousness. This is a thread that continues throughout the book of Acts. Dividing walls between Jew and Gentile begin to get torn down in these new communities. Wealth gaps start to get bridged. Lines of kinship start to get redefined. There is no “us and them” anymore—there is only us. We belong to one another.
This way of relating through oneness plays itself out in new ways of relating to money, property, and possessions. The text says, “No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they had everything in common.” This was a new economics—a shared economics.… The difficulty is we’re all caught up in a sophisticated practice of consumerism and hoarding, and we’ve been conditioned to it for so long that we can’t imagine other possibilities.
What was happening in these communities was the work of Spirit-inspired reimagination. There was a radical redistribution of wealth, and what drove this was not any particular form of ideology—it was not coercion—but was the simple fact that, as people being transformed by the Spirit, they could not move forward with anyone in their community having need. They could not move forward with anyone being in a position over or under anyone else due to wealth, status, or class.
This new relationship and redistribution are what it looked like as people were pulled into the vortex of the Spirit. It was an intensified giving, an intensified belonging, and an intensified loving. This is what loving action practically looked like in these newly formed and forming communities.
And so, as the wealth gap is only increasing in our world—because those in power want to make it so—we need a radically new way of belonging to one another. We need people who are not okay with the status quo of ongoing economic injustice, exploitation, and inequity, but who are freed from the tyranny of power, prestige, and possessions into a radical belonging and a radical love.
Reference:
Adapted from Drew Jackson, CAC Morning Sit, April 29, 2025. Unavailable. Used with permission.
Image credit and inspiration: Joel Muniz, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. In a simple act of solidarity, this photo captures people delivering food to a food bank during the pandemic—a quiet reminder that real change happens when we show up for each other.
Story from Our Community:
I live in a remote area in the West of Ireland, where the population was decimated in a succession of famines in 1845–1849. Near my home is a small road known as the Famine Walk in memory of the starving people who died along it in one of the worst years of famine. I often feel a sadness hanging over the mountains and the wild, beautiful landscape. Yet, I sense the souls at peace and healed within the sacred earth. These souls who suffered are now safe and made new, and a spiritual energy flows up as soft light from the rocky fields. This is a place where I found my spiritual home and a caring community. In this place, my spirit has been renewed and resurrected in close communion with earth, sky, and sea.
—Barbara H.
