EXEGETICAL STUDY OF COMMUNITY OF GOODS IN ACTS 4:32-35 AND ITS APPLICATION TO CHU CH’S OLE IN POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper examines the idea of community of goods in Acts 4:32-35 in application to church role in poverty alleviation. The text is studied using the grammatico-historical approach of exegesis, featuring textual criticism, analyses of salient grammatical and syntactical features notable in the text as well as historicocultural contextualization of the concept of community of goods. The study discovers that the idea of community of goods was not an original innovation of the early Church but a theological adaptation of a prevalent sociocultural and philosophical legacy of the society within which the church found itself. The paper concludes that the practice should not be literally appropriated as it only reflects that the Church has a timelessly binding obligation to care for the poor; thus, it must put in place contemporarily sensible principles by which its wealth is utilized for mutual aid and egalitarian welfare of its members. The study recommends that the Church should take poverty alleviation as a fundamental theological obligation essential for Christian fellowship and evangelism; put in place specific poverty alleviation programmes, not merely on occasional or circumstantial bases but as an integral part of its mission in society; while Church leaders should appropriate the wealth of the church as commonwealth, meant for mutual care and welfare of the entire membership, not personal aggrandizement.