Unity in the Early Church and Now (Post #2): Stewardship and Service
Unity in the Early Church
If you take time to read the book of Acts, it’s hard to ignore the commitment and unity of the early church. How did they achieve and maintain this unity? To me, three main factors played vital roles: perspective, presence, and prayer.
In the first post about unity, we looked at the early church’s shared perspective on Scripture (and you can read that HERE!). Individually and corporately, the members of the early church relied heavily on the Apostles’ teachings, and they met together regularly to study and learn. This common prioritizing of Scripture helped them keep the main thing the main thing, but it also changed their perspective on several practical, everyday issues like stewardship and service.
Starbucks and Stewardship
Stewardship is just a fancy word for managing something that has been entrusted to you. Every day, you and I steward our time, energy, talents, and resources. All these things might seem like our own - things we earned or developed ourselves. But the truth is, everything is God’s. Our money, our time, even the air we breathe. Even though He’s allowing us to use it while we’re walking the Earth, it’s all from God, for God, and really still belongs to God. Most of us know this - we understand the concept. But if you’re like me, “stewarding God’s resources” isn’t something that stays at the front of my mind. I admit it doesn’t usually play a role in my daily decision-making.
For example, when I’m out and about in the mornings, swinging through Starbucks for a coffee is always a temptation. (My drinks of choice fluctuate between a hot white mocha, a chai tea latte or a cold caramel crunch frap. It just depends on the day.) Usually, the deciding factors for me are how many calories or how much money I have available to spend that given morning. Honestly, I rarely think to myself, “is buying Starbucks today really the best way to steward God’s money?” (I’m definitely not saying buying a drink at Starbucks is a bad thing. Plus I’m pretty sure that coffee is one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind. I’m just pointing out that the concept of stewardship doesn’t usually enter my mind when I’m headed toward the Starbucks drive-thru.) Keeping a perspective of “stewarding God’s resources” isn’t always my strong point. But it definitely was for the early church.
Stewardship in the Early Church
In Acts chapter two, Luke describes the early church:
“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had a need” (verses 44-45).
These two verses reveal something pretty radical about these early believers: they shared their stuff. I’m a parent and a teacher. I fully understand that “sharing is caring” and it’s best to be a good “share bear,” but sharing is HARD! Apparently, sharing was one of the distinguishing marks of the early church. Scripture doesn’t give us a detailed run-down of their financial plan, but the facts that they “had everything in common” and “sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had a need” make it clear that they shared their stuff. The early church clearly had a stewardship perspective.
In order to share their stuff, they must have understood that everything belonged to God, so why not share it? There’s no need to hold your money tightly with a closed fist if it doesn’t really belong to you in the first place. Psalm 24:1 reminded them (and reminds us!) that everything we have is from and for God. He owns it all, so sharing should be a no-brainer.
Now keep in mind that this passage in Acts 2 just describes the early church. It doesn’t necessarily prescribe a specific way of life that we must now imitate. But their overarching attitude and perspective of selfless stewardship is definitely something we can and should copy today. And because the early church understood stewardship, they also prioritized service.
Service in the Early Church
Acts 2 says the believers were “together and held things in common” (verse 44). Being together made it easier for them to notice the needs of others. And their stewardship perspective made it easier for them to share their own resources to meet others’ needs. They sold their own stuff and dispersed the funds to any who had need. This may seem difficult (or even financially stupid!), but think about it…
It can definitely be hard (maybe even painful) to donate 100 of my own hard-earned dollars, even if it’s for something good - like helping to buy someone groceries. On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to give those 100 dollars if they belong to God, not me. (Just ask your kids - they’re experts at spending someone else’s money!) Serving others came easier to these early church members because of their stewardship perspective. They weren’t giving away their own money or time. They were simply using God’s resources for His glory.
Stewardship and Service Today
Stewarding God’s resources wisely and selflessly serving others shouldn’t be hallmarks of just the early church. These should be descriptions of today’s modern church, too. But before our local churches can be unified in stewardship and service, we first have to prioritize these individually in our own lives and families.
Where can we start?
Model a balance of saving, spending, and tithing with your family budget
When your kids earn money, help them see the importance of using “their” money to tithe and serve others
Take advantage of opportunities as a family to do local service projects with your church
Let your kids think of little ways to serve strangers who show up in your everyday life (cashier, trash men, delivery person, etc)
Point out random opportunities to serve others in public places (holding the door for someone, putting up a grocery cart that’s not yours, helping load someone’s groceries, etc)
The more we look for ways to steward God’s resources to serve others, the more this habit will become our lifestyle. The more of us who live this lifestyle, the more unified the church will be in loving others like Jesus.
