Community or Commune?

Paul’s Idea of Community by Robert J. Banks is a well researched study exploring the cultural settings surrounding Paul and the early church and its impact on early community life. This classic work is a deep dive so you better sharpen your steak knives and get the Worcestershire sauce out. The excerpt below is about the sharing of possessions.

For all his emphasis on these physical expressions of fellowship, Paul never suggests that the members of his communities have “all things in common,” as did those at Qumran. The oneness of Christians in the gospel does not necessarily involve the pooling of all their material resources. Not that their attitude to property stays unaffected by their commitment to Christ and one another. They are to remember “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9, RSV). In practical terms this does not mean divesting themselves of all their property  so much as the sharing of their “abundance” and “prosperity” with those in want (2 Cor 8:14; 1 Cor 16:2). This should lead to the situation where “the one who gathered much had nothing over, and the one who gathered little had no lack” (2 Cor 8:15, RSV). In the spirit of the gospel such sharing should spring from a “loving” and “generous” heart.  Indeed without this voluntary response, even the total yielding up of one’s possessions is worthless, an “exaction” stemming from a “command” (2 Cor 8:8; 9:5). Paul insists that “each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful  giver” (2 Cor 9:7, NRSV). And this opens up the possibility of people exhibiting a “wealth of liberality,” giving not only  “according to their means” but “beyond their means, of their own free will” even though in a situation of extreme poverty (2 Cor 8:2-3, RSV).

Paul does not call for the abolition of private property or for its transformation into joint ownership. But neither does he talk of people possessing a right to it. Any idea of rights is foreign to Paul. It cuts across all that he stands for. The gospel is about not the claiming of a right but the offering of a present. It is no accident that at the climax of his longest discussion on the sharing of possessions he breaks off into the exclamation, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift” (2 Cor 9:15, RSV). All that the believer owns has to be viewed through the cross, feel its imprint, and become the basis for service to others. In some instances that will mean parting with things, particularly when there is more than enough; in others it will mean parting with some when there is really less than enough. Just occasionally, as with Paul himself, it will mean parting with all and not even asking for recompense.

Paul’s view of possessions goes beyond that characteristic of the Hellenistic associations. For Paul, the sharing of material possessions as a physical expression of fellowship was to take place voluntarily. Though the principle of mutual financial  support also lay at the heart of club life, it was a carefully regulated affair and kept within calculated limits. In this respect it mirrored the general practice of philanthropy in the ancient world at this time, which was to desire reciprocal returns.  If other motives sometimes surfaced, these concerned the expectation of official honor being awarded to the donor.  Even where gifts were  distributed without anything being received in return, it often took place on a quid pro quo basis, with the most worthy of the disadvantaged gaining most of what was dispersed.

Unlike the Essenes, Paul did not found communes as he moved around the ancient world, but this does not mean that he did not challenge common attitudes to property. Those who became members of his communities could never again look on what they owned with the same eyes.

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