The Acts Connection

In Acts chapter four the disciples were praying to God to grant them boldness to preach the gospel in the face of serious opposition from the religious establishment. In answer to their prayer, God sent the Holy Spirit in mighty power upon them (Acts 4:31). Immediately it is recorded that the believers were led to pool their resources so that all the needy had their needs met and their poverty alleviated. The coming-in power of the Spirit inspired not merely spiritual renewal, but also social revolution. Our text draws an important connection between the fullness of the Spirit and the impulse to minister to the poor and unfortunate. This is the Acts connection. The Spirit created a new attitude toward possessions and a new sensitivity to human need. Religion was more like dynamite than opium. It brought people to the place where the haves were willing to share with the have-nots.

The church today needs to consider the Acts connection carefully. One of the most serious charges against it is a lack of ethical credibility. The church seems more like the mirror image of Western capitalism than it does the new community God meant it to be. The quality of our discipleship has been called into question. And if the charge is true, we have to fear, in addition to secular criticism, the very judgment of God. Jesus made it terrifyingly clear that a person does not get to heaven by professing his name but by obeying his word, the fruit of genuine faith (Matthew 7:21-23).

Ours is a world in which the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Wealthy nations like America are like a Shangri-la in a global slum. Famine threatens entire continents. Multitudes subsist in the Third World on less than a dollar a day while we in North America need comparatively huge amounts to support our plush lifestyles. Our text in Acts 4:31-35 speaks to this problem of great urgency and offers a unique and potentially effective solution.

First let us notice that this concern for the needy, this willingness to sacrifice one's own possessions did not arise (it seldom does) from a merely human resolution to be less selfish and more ethical. It arose out of an encounter with the Spirit. It is made perfectly plain in Acts that there is available to us a divine resource for the doing of God's will on the earth. May this not be our problem? The reason that we are afraid to risk our property, to dig into our savings, to choose less lucrative careers is because we are not really yielded to God, not really living in the full unhindered presence of the Spirit. The love of God does not overflow in our hearts, and we are fearful that God is unable to take care of us.

Not to grieve over social injustice and poverty in the world is a spiritual problem. We are not calling on people to mobilize their forces on behalf of the needy in an act of great human effort. We are calling on Christians to yield unreservedly to God's Spirit, and let God use us, as God used our Lord, to be agents of liberation, preaching good news to the poor, and release to the captives (Luke 4:18). We will share Jesus' concern for the needy when we allow the Spirit of Jesus to fill us. We are experiencing in our generation a great outpouring of the Spirit of God. Thousands of people in all denominations report a new wave of spiritual power, love, and joy. All this fills our hearts with praise and thankfulness. And now we call upon all our Spirit-filled brothers and sisters wherever they are to minister in the power of God and with the gifts of God to the great throng of wretched and oppressed peoples on every continent.

The Acts connection is not all that novel or surprising. The apostles and prophets everywhere insist that a vital relationship with God will produce a strong impulse toward social concern. Through Isaiah God tells us that the fast he delights in involves sharing our bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into our houses (58:5-7). Amos explains that God is not interested in religious observances unless justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream (5:21-24). James insists that the person who refuses to meet the need of the needy neighbor is not a Christian at all (2:14-17). John gives us several tests for genuine faith, and one of them has to do with our response to the needy brother. "If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (1 John 3:17). All through the Bible the point is repeatedly made that our faith in God must prove itself concretely, in acts of mercy and justice, if we expect it to save us.

How we love to talk about and experience the fullness of the Spirit. There is no greater joy on earth than to commune with the Spirit in the fellowship of Spirit-led people. But when will it be, God asks us, that this spiritual dynamite will explode into the redemptive, merciful activity that the world so badly needs, and for which the Spirit was given? How long can we expect to enjoy spiritual renewal while refusing to obey the Word of God and the example of Jesus? God has saved us, and created of us a new people, so that we might exhibit God's unmerited grace and favor to the world, a people who walk in the light and set our minds to loving our neighbor as ourselves.

The social revolution at Jerusalem was initiated and carried out in the power of the Holy Spirit. God does not expect us to meet the needs of the world in our own strength and wisdom. For this reason God has poured out God's Spirit upon us. Not for our own emotional satisfaction, but for the healing of the nations. What God has in mind, if we can believe the Bible, is a Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered community that ministers peace, reconciliation, and healing to all people. This is God's strategy for social revolution, a new people, baptized in the Spirit and spreading God's love everywhere.

But what should we do? If all we have is an impulse to act, without any idea what to do, we shall end up discouraged and frustrated. First we must respect the Lord's initiative. "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain" (Psalms 127:1). God must show us what to do. Our action is not to be based on common sense or worldly wisdom alone.

Second, Christian social action is not primarily the task of an individual alone. It is a function and outgrowth of the new community, which God has gifted for the performance of its ministry. The church in Rome was a poor congregation, yet four of the seven spiritual gifts that Paul mentions relate to social ministries (Romans 12:6-8). With all the fuss about spiritual gifts today, little is being said about those we need most. The Lord will equip us and enable us to act when we become serious about obeying God's Word. Let radical Christians gather together before the Lord and yield themselves to God. God will see to it that they receive the gifts they need.

Third, the Lord will direct God's people. Early in the life of the church a problem arose concerning the poor widows in Jerusalem. The believers sought God's direction, and God led them to set up a social action committee of believers they called deacons. A little later the church at Antioch was fasting and praying and worshiping the Lord, and God indicated through a prophecy that Paul and Barnabas were to set out on a missionary journey. God can show God's people specifically and concretely what they ought to do as soon as they are serious about knowing it.

The ethical potential of 40 million American evangelicals staggers the imagination. What would happen if we all believed God's Word and sought after the power of the Spirit to implement it? It would result in the needs of the poor being met, in an ingathering of disciples such as we have never yet seen, and above all in an unprecedented vindication of our risen Lord who gave his life to liberate and save lost and needy mankind.

Clark Pinnock, a theologian and author, was one of the earliest supporters of the Post American. He was a contributing editor when this article appeared.