Generosity, Part 3: Giving Constitutes the Community (Acts 2:43-47 & Acts 11:19-30_
Generosity, Part 3: Giving Constitutes the Community
November 9, 2025
Acts 2:43-47 & Acts 11:19-30
By Pastor Mike Conner
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So far in this series on generosity, we have seen several examples of people who responded to Jesus’ presence in their lives by supporting him “out of their resources” (Lk 8:3). There was Zaccheaus the chief tax collector, who sold half his estate in an instant, promising to pay back anyone he had fleeced four times as much. There was Mary of Bethany, who during a dinner party with Jesus brought a jar of costly perfume and poured it out upon his feet, anointing him and filling the house with its fragrance. There were the women – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and the others – who traveled with Jesus from place to place supporting the needs of his ministry.
Each of these characters gave their gift because Jesus was with them, and they loved him. They could sense in him the very self-gift of God. All that was beautiful and true and pure and loving in the universe was present in this man who walked among them, made time for them, came into their homes, and changed their lives for the better.
The Book of Acts tells the story of the first Christians, those who received the outpouring the Holy Spirit after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. With the power of Jesus’ Spirit to help them, they began to establish a communal way of life based on everything Jesus had taught them and shown them. These stories that Larry has read for us, one from Acts 2 and one from Acts 11, showcase generosity as an essential ingredient in Christian community.
What do Christians do together? What are the basic steps in love’s choreography?
As we ask these questions we need to remember that, in the world of the New Testament, Christianity was a radically new and persecuted faith. When Acts tells us that “a deep sense of awe came over” the people, and that the Christians in Jerusalem were “enjoying the goodwill of all,” it speaks to the newness of this life in the Spirit, the refreshing care and respect that Jesus’ people were extending to orphans, widows, foreigners, the sick, and the poor. And when Acts tells us that “the believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen’s death,” it speaks to the threatening conditions in which this generous life was practiced.
Christian generosity was not charitable giving in our modern understanding of it. For modern charity often manifests as an us-them, or a top-down, relationship: the Church, from a position of material strength, dispensing resources to others. New Testament Christianity was, by necessity, much more spontaneous, and much more mutual. It was closer in practice to what people today might describe as Mutual Aid, a grassroots strategy for the meeting the needs of the most vulnerable in our community by allowing the most vulnerable to be leaders in crafting solutions. It’s like our new Blessing Pantry, which invites our neighbors to take what they need and also to give what they can.
The Christians had no cultural power. They were simply practicing generosity at the local level; everyone a giver, everyone a recipient. It was a captivating way of life bubbling up from the bottom of the social hierarchy. In the paradoxical mystery of the Gospel, all would become poor so that all might become rich. The early Christians’ economic practice was both an indictment of and an invitation to the world around them. How true might that be even for us, as we give to Christ in a society that is robbing its own people of food and healthcare even as it supplies bombs and ammunition for wars halfway around the world.
The economic solidarity of the early Christians was one of several core practices that Acts 2 distills for us: gathering for prayer and praise, gathering around tables for Holy Communion and other meals, gathering to learn about Jesus. And if we really think about it, it’s not as if the material giving is the only manifestation of generosity in this way of life. It’s just the most concrete one. But prayer and praise require a generosity of spirit. Table fellowship requires a generosity of presence. Holy Communion and sound teaching put us in touch with God’s fathomless, yet daily, self-gift to us.
I love the story that Luke tells in Acts chapter 11 because it shows how the generosity of the Christian community developed across time and space. Acts 2 shows us this really concentrated moment of life together in Jerusalem before the first Christians were scattered across the known world. Acts 11 shows us how those same impulses for generosity flourished even when things got more complicated and far-flung.
Barnabas is key to this story. He’s introduced in Acts 4 as “a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet” (Acts 4:36-37). Barnabas was an early participant in the generous community forming in Jerusalem.
Barnabas appears next in the story in chapter 9, after Saul’s conversion. Saul, who we know as the Apostle Paul, was one of the great enemies of the first Christians. He got warrants to their places of worship; he authorized their imprisonment and beating; he even oversaw the killing of Christians. But in a dramatic way, God broke through to Saul and humbled him. Saul then became a Jesus follower, and the primary church planter in that first generation of Christians.
But in between his conversion and his calling there was a time of uncertainty. Would he be accepted by the community he had harmed? Would they recognize his change of heart as genuine? He went to Jerusalem to present himself to the apostles, but “they were all afraid of him” (Acts 9:26). But then Barnabas stepped in: “Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for him them how on the road he had seen the Lord” (9:27). Barnaba was not only materially generous, selling his field to support the community, he was also spiritually generous, willing to offer forgiveness, encouragement, and belonging even to someone with Saul’s track record.
And then there’s this wonderful story in chapter 11. Even after Saul’s conversion, the persecution of the Christian community continued, and people were forced to flee Jerusalem and travel to other places in the Mediterranean world. Some of the early Christians show up in Antioch of Syria, and they begin preaching not only to the Jews living there but also to the Gentiles. Their ministry is blessed by God, and the Gentiles start believing in Jesus.
The Jerusalem church catches wind of this news, and they want to understand it more deeply and support it. They send Barnabas, the son of encouragement, to Antioch, and when he gets there he’s amazed at the way God’s Spirit is moving in this diverse community – Jews and Gentiles, natives of Antioch and foreign preachers – and it fills his with joy. He encourages them, teaches them, and helps them grow.
Then Barnabas sets out to find Saul. This was the first century. You couldn’t just send a text and say, “Hey, where you at?” Barnabas had to go find Saul. He traveled a distance of over 70 miles on foot from Antioch to Tarsus, looking for his friend. When he found him, he brought Saul back to Antioch and they spent a year in ministry together building up that church. Later, the church in Antioch becomes the congregation that would affirm Saul’s calling as a missionary and send him out to plant churches. Saul cut his teeth for ministry in Antioch, thanks to Barnabas, who believed in his calling and included him in this joyful work.
Finally, to bring things full circle, one day prophets arrive in Antioch from Jerusalem. They tell the church in Antioch that a great famine is coming to afflict the known world. The church in Antioch responds by deciding to collect resources for the Christians living in Judea, “everyone giving as much as they could.” They started a weekly collection to bless their siblings in Christ who lived 300 miles away, and they entrusted the delivery of this gift to Barnabas and Saul.
Think of all the vectors of giving, the manifestations of generosity.
It starts with God’s generosity. Not fazed at all by persecution, God empowers these scattered preachers to reach a new and diverse set of hearers. God is generous in blessing fresh ministry in new places. There were the preachers themselves who pushed on the accepted boundaries and expanded their ministry to include Gentiles as well as Jews. There was the church in Jerusalem who shared Barnabas. There was Barnabas who shared his joy, his time, his teaching. There was Barnabas again who went to find Saul. There was the year they spent together building up the Antioch congregation, making it one of the strongest for years to come. And there were the Antiochian Christians responding to the needs of the church in Jerusalem by collecting funds for a time of famine. The role of giver and receiver reversed for a time. A kind of joyful mutuality that doesn’t keep score.
Is it any wonder that “It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians”? The word Christian means little Christ, and something about this multi-layered, overflowing culture of sharing seemed so distinctly like Jesus himself that people gave the Christians their enduring name.
I’ve seen a lot of sharing here at First UMC. Y’all are a generous people.
You share your lives with each other, telling your stories, opening your homes. You share your spiritual gifts with each other, praying and encouraging and teaching. You share your material resources with one another, giving food to the pantry, giving tithes to the church. You share in simple acts of service: vacuuming, cooking, trimming trees. And so much more.
This weekend, we had youth and adults here for an overnight retreat called Poky Rally. Participants came from Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Twin Falls, Boise, and other places. Each person here came to share themselves with others and to be shared with. Connections were made across artificial boundaries – denomination, congregation, city. We really are linked by love to one another.
What strikes me about Barnabas is that “when he arrived and saw the evidence of God’s blessing, he was filled with joy.” His first gift, besides going in the first place, was to simply say Yes. Yes, God is moving here, I see it and affirm it. Yes, these are my new siblings, because wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there’s my family. Thanks be to God!
Keep going, church. Keep going in the way of generosity. Sharing your time, your stories, your resources, your Yeses. God wants to move among us in power in this time of great need and uncertainty for many in our community. May we continue to gather, to worship and pray, to share together at the Table, and to give.
In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.