A challenge isn’t a bad thing, as you say, but a challenge to what? The only clear expectation is that Christians will share SOMETHING, which is related more to their joy and gratitude, reflecting a cheerful heart. What has God done for us? How grateful are we? How do we show that? Let’s look at the attitude rather than any amount, as long as it is greater than nothing. When we see the woman giving 2 coins, that is a cause for celebration because the amount is not what matters. When we see the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and hair, we’re seeing undiluted, undignified love.

In the Acts passage, I don’t see the church leaders whipping the members into a giving frenzy. (We’ve seen that play out in history, e.g., gold-plated cathedrals.) I see them celebrating and endorsing a passion that is demonstrated in generosity.

You have a good point in looking at WHAT we give. For some people, giving time is harder. For some, money is harder. So? There’s another resource, and that is people. Do we offer our families, our own bodies, our health, our pride? Are we willing to encourage our kids into the low-paying, low-status jobs of social work, teaching, preaching, church-planting? Are we willing to tell our kids and spouses, “I can’t be with you tonight. I need to do some work for the Lord that will take me away for a few hours.”

Every bit of it is challenging, and if we’re honest with ourselves and our Lord about it, he will work with us on it. And there’s no more opportune time for that than in a crisis. Was that the crash of the economy and the agriculture that I just heard? Some say we’re already entering the Perfect Storm in which we may be called to stretchhhhhh in many ways.

My students asked me, “Sensei, why are there so many churches, and so close to one another in such a small town as this?”

What was I to say? Each corner church has their own flavor of Jesus?

I still think God hates denominationalism, that His Son has been picked at and only parts of his teachings have been selected to appease individual groups, as opposed to those groups adapting themselves to Christ’s teaching.

Instead of just looking at the issues of sharing everything, why can’t we periodically challenge ourselves, is there a way we can share more? The answer could be yes or no. Yes, we have our own families to provide for, but “love your neighbor as yourself” might expand our concept of family. I think people generally err on the side of sharing too little, than sharing too much.

I just finished reading “The Geography of Bliss,” where Eric Weiner says in the chapter on Qatar,

“So the greatest source of happiness is other people—and what does money do? It isolates us from other people. It enables us to build walls, literal and figurative, around ourselves. We move from a teeming college dorm to an apartment to a house and, if we’re really wealthy, to an estate. We think we’re moving up, but really we’re walling off ourselves.”

So in cultivating an attitude of sharing, holding more loosely to our resources—our money, or (even harder for some) our time—is something to consider. As Mt. 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

It’s easy to be pharisaical/hypocritical when I want my plate to have all the approved practices on it while taking a shortcut around the principles I’m not willing to embrace. It’s more of a challenge to make sincere choices that either reflect my current inadequacies or are a response to what I sense God calls me to in the moment. A person watching my plate won’t necessarily know which motivation my selections reflect.

I think this is where the principle of love comes in. Love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,” and where there is love, there can be constructive conversation rather than judgmental condemnation. This is what helps us grow and row together.

Practices got the Pharisees in trouble with Jesus, not so much because the practices themselves were wrong, but because they held a place of primacy in the Pharisees’ idea of what it meant to be righteous.

We, too, make much more out of practices than we should, and we do it for exactly the same reason the Pharisees did — we are trying to be righteous.

If nothing else this should give us some empathy for that group, one we often malign with impunity. And it should also give us some insight into our own behavior. When it comes to practices, it may be perfectly fine to be a “cafeteria Christian,” but when it comes to principles we need to be much more careful.

And yet practices continue to divide us, because we continue to insist that practices are primary. Some Christians won’t fellowship with other Christians because of practices, and that itself is a practice that needs to be banished to hell.

Once upon a time I thought that God must hate denominationalism and the denominations that were its product. I don’t think so anymore, and I’ll explain that in another post, but I know that God clearly dislikes those who “practice their righteousness” before men to be noticed by them.

Someday, I suppose, we will be able to get to the end of the cafeteria line, look at our tray and be happy with our choices, and look at the tray of our friend who chose something quite different (but good in principle) and be just as happy for her. Until we can, we have a lot of praying — and a lot of practicing — to do.

There are many issues related to the Acts text on sharing everything. First, it’s not a commandment but a story of how people were so excited about their new love for Jesus and his church that they put others’ interests ahead of their own. (Although I wonder about the untold details of this story and how they provided for their own families after this. Did they sell a summer house or the house they lived in? Did they keep enough money to move into a smaller dwelling or impose on another family? Did they expect Jesus to return so soon that the physical future didn’t matter?)

This is a beautiful story of overwhelming love and excitement. I think the more pertinent question is: do we have and display that kind of passion today in ways that make sense, given that we have families to provide for, communism has been shown to ultimately suck the initiative and momentum out of people, and nobody knows when Jesus will come?

And, no, Bill, you won’t get a holy kiss from me, but how about a holy hug?