The Kingly Rule of God Is Evidenced On Earth In The Lives of Believers (4:32-35).
The description that follows, which is an amplification of and expansion on Acts 2:44-45, was intended to further convey the idea of the Kingly Rule of God as being evidenced on earth, and as constantly growing. They had now become a ‘multitude'. Their prayers for the expansion of the word of God was being answered, so that they were becoming large enough to require larger scale provision.
What is also being brought out here is that the first enthusiasm had now become settled practise, and the spontaneous generosity of chapter 2 had become an established and thought through pattern. Here was the ideal existence of the people of God, an existence full of mutual love and self-giving and sharing in common, and almost parallel with the descriptions of peace and concord among the animals in Isaiah 11:5-9; Isaiah 65:25. But here was an even more difficult thing, continual harmony amongst men and women. Here too poverty was being eradicated by a common sharing (see Deuteronomy 14:28 to Deuteronomy 15:11). The life of the community was becoming more organised, and meanwhile the Kingly Rule of God was continually being proclaimed externally through the witness of the Apostles.
But there is no thought that they became a community separated off from others like the Qumran community, or that the sharing in common was compulsory. They continued to live normally in the world, but were bound together by their common faith and love for one another. It was a spiritual oneness.
The Jerusalem church was unquestionably at this stage in a unique situation. Jerusalem was a place to which many devout people ‘retired', including many widows, so that they could die in the Holy City. Many devout people, especially the widowed, would be poor and supported by the different Jewish synagogues where almsgiving to fellow-Jews was seen as a major function of the synagogue. (Jerusalem was also a place of ‘hangers-on' and beggars hoping to benefit from the religious atmosphere). But once some of these devout people turned to Jesus Christ, and there were probably many, they may well have found themselves cut off from the synagogue and from its generosity. And being a Christian would not make them popular with the religious authorities who controlled the funds donated for the poor in the Temple. Thus it would behove the newly formed ‘church, congregation' to support them (see Acts 6:1-3), and for this funds would need to be available.
Furthermore as a result of constant famine and economic conditions, a situation which would later greatly increase in severity, the ordinary people of Jerusalem and the surrounding area went through times of continual difficulty economically, again resulting in a need for support for many people. And prices were higher in Jerusalem than in the countryside. Later on, in fact, support would be needed from Gentile churches because of the great sufferings of the Jewish church in Jerusalem as a result of a period of famine lasting some years (compare Acts 11:28-29; 1 Corinthians 16:1-3; 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians 8-9).
But all such situations could only result in the fellowship of Christians, filled with the love of God, making their utmost effort to ensure that none of their number were in need. It was an expression of practical Christian love. It was probably helped on by the expectancy that Jesus Christ must return soon, but we must not limit it to that. It was rather the practical outworking of what Jesus had taught. It was spontaneous self-giving resulting from the love of Christ within.
Both the summary in Acts 2:42 --47 and here are thus intended by Luke not only to express how the church grew and became more Christlike, and how they revealed that they were living under the Kingly Rule of God, and how they were now large enough to require large scale provision, but also to indicate the passage of time and a period of spiritual consolidation following, in the first case, Pentecost and Peter's first notable speech in the Temple, which had resulted in the ‘three thousand'. and here, after Peter's second major speech in the Temple, which resulted in an increase to five thousand men, and which was followed by the reaffirmation of Pentecost in Acts 4:23-30. Each step forward was being followed by consolidation, while emphasising that continual expansion also took place. The new believers were not being left to themselves. Great care was being taken of their spiritual and practical welfare.