There is a passage in Acts where it says that the early Christians shared their wealth according to their need.
Which one?
I heard this on the radio just a few days ago.
Jesus told the rich young ruler to go and sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor.
If he had been a Communist he would never have told the guy to 'sell' everything he owned.
Not quite. Those who could, contributed, some by selling land, if they chose to. They certainly did not have to. Those who had need could draw from the contributions, but certainly not to live on. Only widows over the age of 60 were permitted to be permanently supported by the church, and only those widows who had no family to support them.
The narrative in Acts. begins at Acts 4:32 and continues through Acts 5:11. While the narrative is awkwardly written to sound as if they were practising a form of communism, their contributions were voluntary. They were not selling their homes or their means of support.
The admonition to care for widows is found in I Timothy 5:3.
A frequently overlooked scripture by leftists is found in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 : "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat."
I don't know if you're being sarcastic here...but, in case you weren't...voluntary acts of charity, goodwill and love towards other people is alot different than communism, which is, what I like to call: acts of charity, goodwill and love towards other people obtained by force, intimidation, whose dissenters are punished with death.
BIG difference.
The passage is in Acts chapter 2 or 3, and in Acts Chapter 5 a man and wife die for lying about how much they planned on donating to the apostles.
The apostles shared all their goods because they expected Christ to return very soon. There is nothing in the Gospels to suggest communal living is to be forced on society, or even ideal. Of course God wants Christians to provide for the poor, the question is what is the best system to do so. Socialism isn't it, no matter how counterintuitive it may feel to some people who find the Robin Hood mentality is the most Biblical world view. The simple fact is the free market provides more goods for more people than a socialized market does. In fact, in Jesus time, Jerusalem and Judea were for the most part, centralized/regulated markets. The Sadducees in Jerusalem dictated production and market prices to the farmers outside the city. Hardly "capitalism".
The market system really did not come into its own until the medieval period in Italy, when fractional reserve banking came into existence. To look for some simplistic on-the-surface commentary on contemporary economics from the Gospels is like looking for commentary on Quantum Physics or technological innovation. The Gospels are about core values and core theological truths, not a litany of programs to execute and understand those values and truths in every age , every period in world history. To suggest otherwise, would mean to dismantle the scientific method and democratic republics, two of many examples that of course aren't explicitly mentioned in the Bible. God gave us brains and logic and discernment, and He gave them to us for a reason--He expects us to use them.