Big Buts of the Bible

Acts 4:32–37

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.
—Acts 4:32

What a beautiful picture Acts paints of the earliest believers.

They shared a life-changing bond in Jesus. They had become a family of faith, moved by grace and love, and that relationship changed the way they viewed everything—including the things they owned. They held their possessions loosely enough that when someone among them was in need, others were willing to respond.

Luke even singles out one man whose generosity was apparently so characteristic and encouraging that the apostles gave him a nickname: Barnabas—Son of Encouragement.

Still, this can be a challenging passage.

Are we supposed to sell our possessions and give the money away? After all, Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell what he had and give to the poor. Is Acts 4 presenting the financial model every follower of Jesus is expected to imitate?

I don’t think that’s primarily what Luke is showing us here.

Acts describes a particular moment in the life of the early Jerusalem church. But behind their extraordinary generosity is something every follower of Jesus is invited to imitate: They valued God and one another more than they valued their possessions.

That’s where the little word but catches my attention.

No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

One of my favorite writer-preacher-theologians, the nineteenth-century British preacher Charles H. Spurgeon, taught from this passage several times. Rather than concentrating only on the early believers’ practice of selling property, Spurgeon pointed his hearers toward the attitude beneath it: Does the grace of Jesus increasingly produce in us the same self-denying, sacrificial love we see in Him?

Because when Jesus changes a heart, sooner or later He changes our relationship with our stuff.

That’s part of what makes this scene in Acts so remarkable. These were ordinary human beings, every bit as capable of selfishness, fear, and self-preservation as we are. Yet grace had so transformed them that they were willing to loosen their grip on what they possessed for the good of someone else.

The text says it plainly: “No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own.”

There’s the heart of it.

As followers of Jesus, we gradually learn that everything we have ultimately belongs to God. Our homes. Our possessions. Our talents. Our time. Even what we’ve earned through years of hard work—all of it exists beneath the larger umbrella of God’s goodness and provision.

That doesn’t necessarily mean giving everything away.

It means learning not to hold everything so tightly.

And I do think that’s something we learn. It’s an area of spiritual growth. Trust develops through experience—through looking back and realizing how many times God has provided, how many unexpected gifts have arrived, how many needs have somehow been met.

Over time, His faithfulness makes it a little easier to open our hands.

Maybe that’s the hope hidden in plain sight here. God isn’t merely interested in taking things from us. His grace is steadily freeing us from believing we have to clutch everything so tightly in the first place.

The early believers discovered something beautiful:

When we trust the Giver, we don’t have to be quite so afraid of letting go of the gifts.