Eternal Communities, Eternal Work, and Worldly Risk

Did you ever consider that Aquila and Priscilla created the job so that Paul could work for them and support his ministry? They would have basically hired him to work. They would have had the tent making equipment, and the market to sell the tents, and they hired Paul and paid him or had some arrangement where he could profit from selling the tents he made from their materials so that he could support himself in the area.

Acts 18:1 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them,3 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.

Also in Acts 4:34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold35 and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Transpose that with 2 Thessalonians 3:6Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you,8 nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

So the ones who had need in Acts 4 were obviously not being enabled to maintain that need by relying on the charity of the fellowship. More likely they would have been lifted up, discipled and provided an opportunity or a direction to work and provide for themselves, so then they could be the ones helping. I think many people look on the Christian community in Acts as almost a communist one, however I don't think you can come to that conclusion if you take the whole council of scripture. For one thing, if the believers were selling all thier stuff and providing as everyone had need, pretty soon they'd run out of stuff to sell, it isn't sustainable, and definitely not an eternal mindset. However if they were selling thier stuff to lift people up and provide opportunities to work and continue in growing and enriching the community, then that is sustainable and tends toward eternity instead of toward nothing.

These people would have been seen as very strange, even crazy. They were putting everything they had at risk for the community, helping people, starting businesses, and instead of storing up treasures for themselves, they had faith that investing into the eternal community would not only provide for them now, but forever. Truly taking Jesus's advise in Matthew 6 not to store up treasures on earth but instead treasures in Heaven. They took their wealth out of their barns (Luke 12:16) and put it to work profitably in the eternal community. The believers in Acts had total unity in their fellowship which strengthened their faith to put their worldly wealth at risk, they saw the storehouse of their wealth, both physical and eternal, being in the body of Christ.

So from this and particularly the Acts 18 example we can see a 2 fold responsibility. The responsibility of Priscilla and Aquila to put their resources at risk in order to provide the opportunity for Paul to work, and the responsibility of Paul to show up and do the work. In our terms it would be the responsibility of those who have the means to use them to invest in the eternal community, and for those who need means to reliably show up and do the work.

I think it's obvious to see the implications in all of this at home and for our work in the rest of the world.