Just like with anything else when it comes to relationships, we can look to God. If you look carefully, you will see that the members of the Godhead possess things on their own. Jesus said this was the case when He was talking to His Father…
“I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me: for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them” John 17: 9, 10.
Mi casa es su casa :).
The attitude of God
Now possession is different than ownership. All of the members of the Godhead own everything equally. But they do not possess everything equally.
They possess things individually that belong to the community. Each of them exist with an attitude of “what’s mine is yours, and yours is mine.”
They possess things, but they possess them FOR the community.
What happens when a group of people take on this same posture and attitude toward one another? There’s a continual movement of resources. There’s a consistent flow of giving and receiving within the normal rhythms of life together.
Just like the Father, Son and Spirit are always giving to one another, a healthy church has members that are always giving to one another.
Possessing is meant to be relational
This is not taking a mechanical collection. It doesn’t mean money is thrown together into a common fund waiting to later be dispersed. It’s commonly misunderstood that the first churches did this.
They did take collections dynamically for special needs and occasions where it was appropriate for a church to give a lump sum of money for a specific cause. But this type of thing was not a mechanical occurrence. It was relational. It was organic.
They collected for things when they were inspired by the Spirit to support a person to spread the gospel or to help a church in another city that was struggling financially.
Mechanical depersonalized giving robs a community of the nature of giving and receiving. Money becomes possession-less and therefore un-relational.
Giving and receiving are supposed to be a personal matter. It’s an activity that is supposed to take place between people. We see this is the case within the members of God.
Because you possess something, you can give it. And because others possess something, you can receive from them. This giving and receiving is love being expressed. It’s a relational activity.
When resources are thrown together to be later dispersed, do you see how it depersonalizes the community? People are no longer receiving directly from other people.
Losing everything for one another
Godly possessing only works when a community buys in together. Individuals within a community are not going to consider their possessions the community’s if they don’t trust the community’s possessions are also theirs.
I appreciate how Milt Rodriguez describes how this works within God in his book The Community Life of God…
The Father can be completely secure in losing everything to the Son because He knows that His “everything” will still be retained by the community.
The flowing and sharing of possessions with one another is a strong indication of the health of a church. It’s a catalyst for the members of a church being built together. Where you find people holding tight to their possessions, you find a church that will struggle to be healthy.
People hold tight because they don’t trust that they’re secure in the community. So they keep their possessions as a safety net for themselves. They store up so that they’re protected from loss.
Godly community is all about loss. It’s about losing yourselves for one another. This is God’s nature and we are designed to be His image.
Michael Fleming
Mike Fleming is the creator of Finding Healthy Church. Over 20 years ago, he was sparked by the frustration of failing to experience what the biblical story claimed a healthy church was like. He caught a vision and passion for seeing local churches be what they were designed by God to be. He shares what he's learning along the way so the health of local churches around the world are improved. He’s currently working on an eye-opening book that will help better understand what it means for a church to be healthy.
I’ve seen this in cults, this sharing of goods or possessions. It all sounds good, but what about working for what you want? & not expecting others to provide for you? I can see if someone is in need, that we help. One minute you said it is love that we give, but as you speak, it sounds like our goods are to be given. What’s to keep someone from coming in & wanting whatever is in our homes (for the church) & we never see it again? So, then we have to replace whatever it is, if it is a needed thing in our own home. We have freely given to people when there was a need, & we’ve had people come into our home & expect us to just hand things over too. Telling us, we can afford it! What do they know of our finances? We live in a fallen world!
@Becky Again, the “sharing” that’s being talked about here does not take the form of a common fund, like is the case in many cults. As I mentioned, resources then become possession-less and therefore un-relational. It’s just the opposite. In healthy Christian community, people work for and possess their own things without expecting others to provide for them.
In the scenario you mention where someone might try to manipulate me to share what I possess with them using the justification that “what’s mine is theirs,” this is also the opposite of the motivation of the Life of Christ. Within the confines of healthy mutually submissive relationships, members would not be looking to possess each other’s things. They would be looking to give and receive with each other so that the community is built up.
What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine, but that doesn’t mean you get to take what I possess as you please. I must give you what I possess because I’m looking to build you up.
We possess things for the community, but that doesn’t mean the community gets to decide how they’re given.
This article makes amazing sense. We attend a place that has a ‘benevolent fund’ where once a month people can give spontaneously to this fund. Not sure where these funds go specifically…maybe they like to keep it private for the sake of the recipient which I understand…but the control goes to the ‘folks in charge’ in this corporate setting. Maybe when gatherings are large vs. small dynamics change….
@Chris Imagine knowing each other well enough to know each other’s needs (even “embarrassing” ones) and allow the Spirit to spontaneously meet those needs relationally. I would assert that if gatherings are too large to give and receive with each other relationally, the gatherings are too large. This is why the early church practiced mitosis (cell division). More on the topic of size here…
Big vs. Small: Which Is The Right Size For A Church?