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[00:00:00] David:  
 

[00:00:48] well, hello John . How are you today? 

[00:00:54] John: Well, I'm, I'm glad to be talking to you. We've had some challenging technical problems this week cuz I'm on the road and uh,  

[00:01:01] David: traveling, aren't you?  

[00:01:02] John: I am traveling. I am traveling. I'm just at the end of two weeks on the road where I've been doing lots of stuff. So currently in the Bible College of Wales in Swans. They just finished a week of teaching with a gorgeous bunch of students here. 

[00:01:16] It's a sort of an intensive discipleship program and we've just done a little bit of teaching around Luke 2 52, so that's just been great this week.  

[00:01:23] David: Excellent. So two texts across the Atlantic and on the road But it's just great to be able to talk to you and we're in Acts chapter four and verse 32 to 37. In this episode, we're gonna chat a little bit about, actually quite a lot of things that are said in what, what almost functions as a bit of a summary statement to the preceding couple of stories. You've had this run from X chapter three to X chapter four of all these things happening, and now Luke gives us a sort of little five verse. 

[00:01:57] Window into life in the early church, or the first church might even be the right thing to say. And so you're going to read it for us, John, and then, and then we'll dive in. 

[00:02:08] John: Absolutely, I would be honored to you. Here we go. And it says this all the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had with great power. The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There was no needy persons among them for from time to time, those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money for the seals and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph ate from Cypress, whom the apostles called Barnabus, which means some of encouragement sold. 

[00:02:53] A failed. He owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles feet. 

[00:03:00] David: So in the narrative, it's a conclusion summary, but like some readers might jump ahead to to, to chapter five and realize that that final sentence both summarizes and pushes us forward into what's going to happen in this, in this like incredible story that we're only four chapters into so far 

[00:03:23] John: Yes, yes, indeed. Absolutely. Amazing. And, and of course, , we reflected last time on, in, in chapter four, this amazing experience that Peter and John had. Then they go to this prayer meeting, and, and I, I love this idea of, Peter's prayer stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant. 

[00:03:47] I, I love the positiveness of the prayer that this was pointing to a community that wasn't set against So, , but rather a community that was set for something. And then I think that rolls beautifully into a, a summary description of this community. Straight out of that it says they were. And again, this is our gorgeous link to the Holy Spirit, this beautiful disrupting presence, chapter four verse 31, And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly, and then it goes straight in all the believers. 

[00:04:20] We're one in heart and mind, and you get this beautiful movement from a dynamically, what we may call a dynamic spiritual experience of the prayer meeting and this incredible response of God and the prayer meeting and a supernatural event, and then we're launched from their straight into community. 

[00:04:38] Practicality and expression of that spirituality. And I love that. David, I, I love, again, the earthiness of that, 

[00:04:46] they don't live in the prayer meeting. They don't stay in this holy presence. They don't want to, to use the Peter illusion from years ago, they don't wanna stay up the mountain of transfiguration. 

[00:04:58] They, they actually come out of this prayer meeting and then were told immediately this community. How our one in heartened mind, and not only that, but that one in heartened mind is expressed in taking care of each other's needs. I, I love the connectedness of that. My Bible, unfortunately, my translation splits verse 31 and 32, where the heading and my heading says, The believers share their possessions. 

[00:05:24] And actually that little heading just, just disturbs the flow a little. And although as you say, it does sit as a gorgeous little distinct summary section, I think it is, it is meant to be understood in the flow of all this dynamic supernatural expression and expectation. It goes before, and, and that beautiful, beautiful a cohesion and connectedness between what is perceived as spiritual and what is perceived as material, Even though we would see them as one and the same. 

[00:05:54] David: I I think that there's a way of reading acts, which says, Oh, Acts is. Just about how the Holy Spirit works. Right. But like what I hear when you're saying that is, is that what Luke is guiding us through is all the levels of disruption of the Holy Spirit, right? So that essentially what you actually get is that here is how the Holy Spirit is, but there's also a level wherein Luke is also saying, and here is what it is to be. 

[00:06:28] Right. So he's describing how the Holy Spirit works, but also describing how humans should work. There. There, there's an insight into the ideal of this community, and we have a tendency, I think, as, as humans to say, Oh no, what we are interested in acts is how does the Holy Spirit work? Cuz we know how we work. 

[00:06:47] John: Mm. 
 

[00:06:48] David: But it seems like what Luke is showing, even in only four chapters, what he has showed us is if you actually really lean into how the Holy Spirit works, you're going to have to change your mindsets and your attitudes towards how humans work. Cuz humans are gonna have to act differently and behave differently as a result of God's working through the Holy Spirit. 

[00:07:08] But if you live within the wider creation theology that we've talked, Which seems to be present in the New Testament. Of course, if the Holy Spirit is changing how we behave, he's probably changing as to how we're supposed to behave. Hence why I say there's, there's actually a description of how to be properly human in all of this. 

[00:07:25] John: Yeah, so good. And as, and as someone who's been raised in a, like a full on Pentecostal setting, I would concur. completely with that. I, I think, as a boy, when I sat in church and heard sermons on, on the Book of Acts, it was always about what the Holy Spirit would do to us, in us, through us. 

[00:07:45] But the, the focus was always almost exclusively. And I hope I'm not doing it disservice to my upbringing, it was almost exclusively sort of, I would describe as spiritually oriented. It was it was the Holy Spirit working in my spirit towards spiritual ends. And, and actually I don't think we heard much translation into the human in, apart from the experience of being filled with the spirit and speaking in tongs and laying our hands on the sick, et cetera, which are all, of course, dynamically important. 

[00:08:20] We, we, we believe that those things are important in the book of Accent to us. But, but actually, here's a community expressing transformational behavior toward each. in the same breath that they've just had the most incredible prayer meeting and they've seen God at work and they've seen God do something truly incredible in them. 

[00:08:44] And I love that, that that's seamless in the book of Act. It doesn't, it doesn't feel like we're changing gear. It feels like this is just another expression of this amazing work, of this amazing Holy Spirit in this new community that's called pathologies. So I, I do think it's a, it's, it's worth for our listeners to really track that all the way through the book of. 

[00:09:07] David: Yeah, I think that when we distance ourself from that way of thinking, then what happens is there's a tendency to cx, 4 32 as as just. Evidence of the new community rather than also to read that as a work of the Holy Spirit. They were together, one in heart and in soul or heart, and in spirit or, or everyone translate that and. 

[00:09:31] I mean, if any of us have ever, been in a room with other people, we know how hard it is to be one in heart and soul or one in heart in mind. And, and, but I, I don't often see us redact 4 32 and say, Oh look, the Holy Spirit's still working. But as you just said, if you follow the run on of the sentence, the Holy Spirit is working powerfully amongst these group of people. 

[00:09:56] And, and Luke says, if, if I can paraphrase, Luke says, And look, they were of one heart and soul , and, 

[00:10:02] John: Yep. 
 

[00:10:03] David: Then you get this statement of, nobody claimed the, the, My translation here has it as private ownership of any possessions. I love how the Greek, the Greek puts it almost that nobody had an advantage. Of stuff. So nobody was first in line is is almost the, but instead of an attitude of, Oh, this is mine, so I get to go first, what they have is this, this notion of, of of common comes in and I just think we, and we can unpack those terms, but overarching sense of this being. 

[00:10:38] The work of the Holy Spirit and then this fascinating lead on from that cuz then verse 33 says, With great power, the apostles gave their testimony. And I just want to imagine, John, that that, that when Luke's talking about with great power, they give testimony that the testimony he has in mind is the work of the Holy Spirit and the speaking of boldness, but also the work of the Holy Spirit. 

[00:11:04] In bringing them into common with each other. I, I think they're all part of the testimony. 

[00:11:10] John: Indeed and, and that beautiful interchange the whole way through. You start with the believers. One heart and mind. Then the sort of commonality of possessions. Then the statement with great power, the apostles continued to testify, the resurrection Jesus, and then straight back into it and there was no needy persons among them. 

[00:11:32] It's, it's like, it's like you have the cm intertwining repeated. It's, it's like it's, it's a, another emphasis of the CM idea. It's a repeat idea. We've just seen the power of. The first thing we're told about is that power of God is demonstrated in this oneness, which expresses itself in possessional generosity. 

[00:11:54] Then we have another flip into power of God and the resurrection being declared, and then another expression of there was no needy persons among them. So I I, I love the way that. Intertwined and I, I love the fact that the Holy Spirit isn't just here to transform us in a dynamic. Obviously supernatural way to bring the kingdom of God to our world through power and demonstration and signs and wonders and the proclamation of the good news of Jesus, but also, but also this is now literally changing the way people look at their world, the way people look at their finance, the way people look at themselves. 

[00:12:38] This is, this is changing the very behavior and fabric of the community in one of the, I think powerful expressions of human community is 

[00:12:47] when our money and material autonomy is impacted. So, people love the idea of community U until we are challenged with areas that we deem autonomous, that actually, Oh yeah, I'm happy to share a pew with you. 

[00:13:04] I'm not going. My money. I'm happy to share this service with you, but like, I, I really don't want to, I don't want to get into your world in terms of the material challenge we're facing. Because, because for many, No, no, That's, that's autonomous. That's, that's mine. But here's the Holy Spirit disrupting the autonomy of this c. 

[00:13:28] At the very issue which strikes at the heart of so many, it's really, it's really fascinating that the only thing that Jesus really compares his R to God is money, is material things mamon. And I think mamon money, material things is one of those big autonomy markers for humans. if we can demonstrate that we're self-sufficient, that we've got financial control that we've. 

[00:13:52] Financial prosperity that we've got some sort of even status socially because of financial cl, that actually that, that there's something that really ponders to the ego of the human that can remain autonomous because they're self-sufficient. And here that autonomy's being challenged at both supply and. 

[00:14:16] Level. Does that make sense in, in terms of that des again, that disruption of the spirit? 

[00:14:21] David: Yeah, De deeply I, I deeply feel that the, the language of ownership is, is so significant to us. I, I. I I've, I've mentioned Willie Jenning's uh, commentary a couple of times, which I found a very provocative at reading of Acts. 

[00:14:40] Well, I actually had an opportunity to, to go to hear him talk, just, just before we were recording actually. And, and, And what you're saying just there just resonates with some stuff that he was saying in that lecture. If you think about world history, right? World history is powerful, people moving around the world. 

[00:15:01] Claiming ownership of things, right? I mean, there is like, there is an American flag on the moon, right? Like there's literally this small patch of the world made a rocket, flew to the moon, put a flag in it. And although they didn't say it as clearly as this, the flag sort of symbolizes, we kind of think this is ours now, right? 

[00:15:20] So, you know what I mean? And, and and you think about. The colonization programs of of France and of Europe and of England and of of, of, of America. We go to other places and we tell, and we, and we take over these places as ours and we tell these people how to behave in ways that we are comfortable with. 

[00:15:39] It's ownership. But then you read the first four chapters of acts and what we've seen over our long conversation is we have. I mean, think, think about this. I'm getting carried. Do we here, John, But just, I, I'm so struck by this off the back of what you're saying, the normal way of almost all religion is you move to a new place and you evangelize that place by saying, here. 

[00:16:02] You need to learn these things about us so that we can tell you about this God and including in most religions. You need to learn the language of the religion so that you can read the holy scriptures and the beginning of the church. Is all of these other languages being spoken right, And praises to God being heard, and, and we're repeating a little bit here when I say this, but I think it's important that the, the opening of the church, the, the Lord God says to his creation, I'm coming to you right? 

[00:16:36] And I, I'm coming to, In your language so that you can hear about me in your own tongue. You don't need to learn, your own language to come in. You don't need to learn my language so you can hear from me. And this is this whole picture of the only journey we've spent, all of the Old Testament trying to journey somewhere. 

[00:16:55] And then the journey that actually matters is God to us right now. Now what we find is the human tendency to want to claim ownership. You. You and me are not cleaning ownership of countries, but we have little patches of ground that we go, This is my house on my bit of land. And the, And what we see in the Holy Spirit is a God who doesn't overwhelm you, but also a God who doesn't come and take things from you, but actually encourages you to think differently about things. 

[00:17:25] And I think, I mean, I think Luke is doing some profoundly heavy lifting of some huge. Not just theological, but But issues of worldview for us, showing us how the Holy Spirit's changing things. 

[00:17:40] John: Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course all of that, all of that conversation in X four is located in one of the most dominant world, empires the world ever seen. So, there is a, 

[00:17:50] David: They're taking land off everybody. 

[00:17:52] John: absolutely there is an incredible juxtaposition there that, that if we constantly. Locate the book of Acts in the zenith of the Roman Empire. 

[00:18:02] I mean, this thing is still rising. It would be another 400 years before collapses. And, and yet there is a, there is a yeast in the dough here that is offering an alternative, that's offering something dynamic. And I, I love the tension, David, and I think the book of Ax represents us. I love the tension between. 

[00:18:22] Freedom. Freedom of will, which is the express image of God and humans. That's, there's freedom to choose. But, but actually, and you, you hinted at it too beautifully there, God is inviting us to express our freedom of will by releasing our autonomy. And, and humans, we love our autonomy. We, we love the idea that not only are we free to choose, but we are free to govern. 

[00:18:49] And I think that's a deeper issue. So like, it's easy, like as a teacher, preacher, and even a follower of Jesus, it's easy to celebrate freedom of will. Freedom of choice. I mean, that's a no brainer. And we're all, we're all the, but the, the challenging aspect of being a person of the way, and we're seeing it right here. 

[00:19:07] and the ordinary moments of sharing what they have is that now that freedom of will is being invited to surrender independence of governance. That, that, that my, my freedom to choose is, is invited by the Lord to. To surrender my ability to self-govern. And I, I think that's very, very deeply power. I think that strikes at the heart of all serious faith journey that am I going? 

[00:19:40] And, and we, we, we sort of hinted at it in our reading with Barnabus. Barnabus chooses to sell a field. So this is not under compulsion. He's not being muscled here to sell his field. He's being invited by the community, by the Holy Spirit to exercise his freedom of choice by surrendering his, his ability to self-govern, and he liquidates an asset and gives it away. 

[00:20:09] And, and I think, I think that's, that's, it's not just about doing good to the poor here it is about, What is my attitude to my own autonomy, my own ability to govern myself? And one of the issues at the heart of that is, is my financial, my physical, my material independence. And I think that's a theme we hear constantly, and it's a repeat theme already. 

[00:20:34] We've only got the chapter four of the book of Acts, and this theme's popped up numerous times. 

[00:20:39] David: There's, there's a, there's a beautiful, tension for us in almost an incarnational reading of. All of this at, at multiple levels. So, we talk about the incarnation God becoming flesh and of course God's becoming flesh. And we struggle so often as humans to know how does that work? 

[00:21:03] Right? Is a bit of Jesus divine and a bit of Jesus human. And I, and I feel like we have to live within. The paradox of that sometimes. And also realize that God, that Jesus shows us how that works, right. By being Jesus. But the incarnation also models something to us. And I was thinking just as you were, as you've talked through several parts of this text, There's, there's a blurriness between where is the divine of God ending in Jesus and where is the human of Jesus beginning. 

[00:21:34] Right? And, and I think the best way to live with that is that you're, if you want fixed, clear categories, then you're never gonna get them. Jesus eating food and being thirst. , is that his human side or is that as much his divine side as Jesus, raising the dead and, and, and, and so on, so forth. 

[00:21:55] In Acts 4 32. Look, we've got a similar blurriness between spiritual stuff and practical stuff. Oh, the, the, the people of the incarnate Jesus. I think have to live with the fact that God blurs things for us. You know that you can't say, Oh, that's the spiritual bit and this is the practical bit. 

[00:22:15] The spiritual is practical in the same ways. You can't say that's the holy bit of Jesus. That's the human bit of Jesus. Jesus is. Both divine and human together. But then on top of that, I think this model of the incarnation, Think about Philippians two. Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped at and held onto. 

[00:22:38] And now here we have an act 4 32. The people of the spirit of Jesus are not grasp. After their advantage. Right? And, and now Luke's language doesn't, isn't word for word the same as Philippians too, but it's, But do you hear what I'm, I'm scratching at John. There's this, Jesus could have scratched after and grabbed after and held onto his equality and advantage with God. 

[00:23:00] He didn't. And we see that the testimony of the resurrection of Lord Jesus in verse 33 is actually being lived out in. Behaving like Jesus. Like someone had an advantage, someone had ownership, somebody had possessions, but they didn't hold onto it. Somehow the spirit of Jesus has caused these Christians to start behaving like Jesus. 

[00:23:24] Does that, Does that make sense? 

[00:23:25] John: Oh, beautiful. Just beautiful. I love that. That's absolutely superb and that's well worth hunting in terms of that just gorgeous link that you made. With our conversation of freedom and autonomy to Philippines too. Absolutely correct. You know in Jesus, you see someone who at one level is free and yet surrendering his freedom. 

[00:23:45] The son can do nothing by himself. He said, it's just amazing mind bending statement from John five. He can do only what he sees the father doing. What I, I, I, I have tracked that verse. It still makes my brain melt because I, I, I, you, you, you've got here God in flesh who has surrendered something. 

[00:24:09] for a greater, a greater cause in himself. And that's essentially the essence of what we are seeing here. And I do, I do absolutely agree that I, I think, and I am so grateful to the Lord for my upbringing. I'm so grateful for my, from, for, from my heritage. I really am. So please do not hear this the wrong way, but I definitely, my spirituality definitely suffered, suffered by separat. 

[00:24:37] a spiritual realm from a physical material realm. And, and that was a very strong separation that in the church that I grew up in. And, and I think consciously, subconsciously, I definitely was influenced by that. I, I think I've come to a place of perhaps more robust insight and revelation, and I would certainly say practice on that now. 

[00:25:01] But that was definitely, definitely there. That somehow being filled with the spirit was about mission. Being filled with the spirit was about bringing supernatural to broken situations, but it was never. These sorts of conversations about ministering to the community in this way. So that was def I, I think that incarnation and that fusing of the two, where does one stop and the other start? 

[00:25:28] I think it's a great analogy. 

[00:25:30] David: And it's worth noting even closer to home than Philippians two is actually verse 33 of our with great power. The apostles gave testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I think it's interesting you get that word resurrection in there because. If you think about how the New Testament reflects on resurrection. 

[00:25:50] Resurrection is the spirit of God, bringing Jesus back in his body, right? So, so I think like Tom Wright's book, Surprised by Hope is to me one of the best kind of readings on this out there. But if God is bringing back life to Jesus, Body, then we can learn a lot about God. We can learn that God isn't just interested in the spiritual, God is interested in, if He's interested in the human body of Jesus. 

[00:26:24] Then the, the, actually, the New Testament comes to the conclusion he's interested in all human bodies, right? Therefore, God is interested in his. Maybe unsurprising, he is creator God, but, but see it's interesting that you've got, look at acts for 32, 33, 34, that you know the whole group. So as you said it practical, the whole group claim didn't claim ownership had anything in common. 

[00:26:46] Then you get this testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. If we're not careful, we can think, oh, spiritual, right? And then there was not a needy person amongst. Back to practical again, but there's this beautiful sense that the resurrection will always, for us as Christians, be the thing that convinces us that the spiritual and the practical are forever. 

[00:27:11] Merged together, and, and, and the resurrection. If God didn't care about the practical, he could have just taken Jesus' spirit back to heaven. And we all live happily ever after in heaven. But, but God chooses to raise Jesus from the dead, I think telling us that. Needy people are an issue for the gospel. 

[00:27:30] That, that that claiming ownership to the, to the exclusion of others is an issue for the gospel. The resurrection tells us that, and, and I think, I think it's beautiful the way Luke kinda almost holds them both together for us. 

[00:27:44] John: Yeah. For sure, for sure. , I, I think that's a, a gorgeous reflection there, David, and, and it, it really, there's a sense in which our spirituality is encompassing. I, I, I love what Nelson says. He says, Everything that God touches becomes sacred. Now I know you have to be careful with the statement. 

[00:28:02] He, in context, he doesn't. 

[00:28:04] immorality is sacred, or illegality is sacred, but what he means is if we're making the journey to understand our spirituality is deeply integrated into every facet of our world, then there's a sense in which what we allow the spirit, what we allow, the word, what we allow the father to touch, becomes a sacred expression of that surrender. 

[00:28:28] And so then in this context, my. , my material ability, my wealth in, in certain cases then, and it's, for some of these believers becomes a, an expression of secret. It becomes an expression of the holy, It becomes an expression of the pure, and of course the, the, these traditions are well. Well grounded even in a Torah. 

[00:28:52] And, and the, these are not surprising ideas, but of course Luke is positioning these ideas as being empowered by the reality of the resurrection of Jesus and by the in enduring presence and power of the Holy Spirit. So, so this, this practice of community is, is centered around, I. You know these, these ideas and these trues and I think that is dynamically powerful as a thought.