The The The early church was a loving community of followers of Jesus who enjoyed the

privilege and responsibility of taking care of each other.

What can we learn from their example to follow today?

On Truth for Life Weekend, Alistairbegg offers some key principles for generously and

yet wisely caring for the needy.

So their solidarity was not you see in X chapter 4, was about the fact that they were committed

in heart and mind. That's the opening section in

verse 32. All the believers were one in what? In heart and in mind. And you can

see that acts 432 is a parallel to acts 244. All the believers were together and had everything in common.

It's almost a parallel statement. All the believers were one in heart and mind and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own.

And their solidarity was such that economics was only one expression of the unity of their hearts and minds.

Because they had understood the words of Jesus who said,

if you can see your brother in need and simply pass him by then how can the love

of God be in you? They had understood the words of Jesus when he takes his disciples

aside and he has to instruct them that when they have done things in giving cups of cold water

in his name to the least of his brethren, they have done it unto him.

And that the way in which they have cared for the afflicted, the way in which they have dealt with a prisoner, the way in which

they have minister to the widow in a affliction, the way in which they have cared for

the orphan, he says, is expressive of the transforming power of my love within your life.

In other words, one of the things that will inevitably happen is that you will find that the stuff becomes a vehicle to be used in God's service. So what we have is

essentially a call to generosity, a call to generosity and generosity begins with an attitude. Generous people start

with an attitude. In fact you can say that everything essentially starts with

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