Back on March 22, 2010, an opinion article was written in the Herald & Review about how the Bible supports the recent health care reform. The author, in the context of a commentary on Glenn Beck, mentioned that Jesus was a communist or at least advocated for the communist ideology. After all, “the Apostles who spread the Christian faith to the Gentiles certainly thought so.”
The author goes on to quote Acts 4:32 that “the community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had every thing in common.” According to the author, this verse presents a problem for “real Christians” who want to take the Bible “literal.”
If right-winged Christians, according to the author, ignore this verse they are engaging in a “Wikipedia-style project to rewrite the New Testament.” The author concludes by saying that “at least I don’t have to rewrite the Bible to support passage of health care reform.”
Wow! There are so many exegetical, hermeneutical, and theological problems with this statement I don’t even know where to begin. Before I make a brief comment, let me say upfront that my desire in responding is NOT political, it is theological and biblical. I am not trying to defend any political party, I am defending the Bible when it is taken out of context and used to advance a political agenda (particular one the Bible doesn’t support).
That said, the author makes a major error by taking what is true of the Christian community (i.e. the sharing of possessions), which is done voluntarily and upon a common confession of Jesus Christ, and tries to make it normative for an entire government. In other words, it is beyond the bounds biblically to take what Christians are to do because they belong to one another in Christ (Romans 12:4-5) and argue that it should be legislated for all Americans. Such a view is an impossible exegetical jump.
Since Christians in the early church voluntarily gathered on Sunday for worship would the author support worship-reform, whereby legislating all Americans to be in church on Sunday or face penalty? For some reason I don’t see that reform passing.
In doing this, the author is guilty of the very same thing she accused “right-wing, biblical literalists” of doing when she accuses them of being “selective in their Bible readings.” By pulling this verse out of context and arguing that it encourages some form of communism is to be most selective indeed. Why, even Wikipedia has higher standards that that!
Pastor Wes
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