Have you ever noticed that the way most people justify their stance on certain issues is by claiming that “God does it too?” I mean think about it, when you hear someone arguing an opinion they almost always throw in an argument about why God is ok with it. It never ceases to amaze me how folks will take one passage of scripture and instead of trying to see what the writer intended they mold it and shape to support their own ideologies. For instance, when I was a new Christian I took the scripture “Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks. For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Tim 4:4-5 NLT) to mean that I could eat whatever I wanted and as long as I thanked God for it, I wouldn’t get fat….I quickly learned that taking scripture out of context was not a hall pass to do whatever I wanted. I say all of this because I’ve seen a lot of folks throwing scriptures on social media lately implying that Jesus promoted socialistic ideals. I decided to take a closer look at their claims so we can decide for sure, was Jesus a socialist?

The idea

To start this series lets take a look at redistribution of wealth. The idea behind this socialistic principle is that money should be distributed to citizens in a way that no one is poor and everyone is even financially. In other words, the government takes care of everyone’s money situation. They distribute a paycheck to everyone so that no greedy business owner decides they want to take more than what they should and get ahead of their employees. In basic terms, they want to “level the playing field” financially. What did Jesus think about this and what does the bible say about it?

When speaking to the rich young ruler in Matthew Jesus said “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19: 21 NIV) Jesus must not like people having more money than others, right? He tells this rich young man that if he wants to be perfect he needs to sell his possessions and redistribute his wealth to those with less than him. Jesus must have passed down His thoughts on wealth to His disciples too. When talking about the early church in Acts 2 the bible says “Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.” (Acts 2: 44-45 NKJV) It seems the apostles believed in the redistribution of wealth. All of the believers brought their possessions to the apostles and the apostles distributed them to the congregation as people had need. In fact, when there was a couple that lied about how much they received when they brought their money to Peter they were struck dead! (See Acts 5:1-11) These are just two verses in the bible that talk about giving to the poor but there and a lot of others we could put in here, clearly though Jesus must have wanted everyone’s wealth redistributed so no one had more than anyone else, right?

These scriptures at face value would have the appearance that Jesus and the apostles all believed in redistributing wealth. However, if you put these scriptures in the context of culture it paints a different picture.

What does scripture really say?

First, let’s talk about Jesus and his disciples when they were all on Earth together. They all had day jobs and new research is showing that they probably had a decent amount of disposable income. Jesus was a craftsman and in those days they were paid very well. (Yes I am aware of 2 Corinthians 8:9 but keep in mind Jesus went from living in heaven as king to the earth as a man. Even if He came as Jeff Bezos He would still have been “made poor” for us comparatively) As a craftsman, He would have been considered a small business owner. Remember, he didn’t start his ministry until he was 30 years old. Odds are, that Jesus worked in his business and built up a good amount of income prior to entering the ministry. We also know that his disciples were business owners as well. Between all of them, they would have had a good amount of money. Further, think about your bank account for a minute. If I were to steal 20 or 30 dollars would you notice? Probably so. These guys had a treasurer who was stealing money from them for 3 years and as far as we can tell they did not notice. I feel it is pretty safe to say Jesus did not have a problem with money.

So if Jesus and his disciples had money, then why in the two passages above were they telling people to give to the poor and sharing everything they had. It’s simple, they were not socialists; they were generous. In scripture, Jesus and the apostles never advocated for or forcibly took money from the rich and gave it to those with less. They simply told everyone regardless of class to be generous. It was not just the rich that brought everything to the apostles, it was everyone regardless of how much money or land they had.

In Conclusion

The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of generosity; not of forceful wealth redistribution. Generosity by its definition can only be achieved if you have a choice to give to others; therefore, advocating that Jesus was a socialist because he encouraged giving is out of context and wrong. Think about it – when you were a kid and your mom had to force you to share your toys with your friends or siblings were you being generous, or were you avoiding trouble? Christians are called to give to the poor generously; not forcibly. Jesus was and is generous, not socialist.

In closing of Part 1, I would like to encourage you the reader to search the scriptures for yourself and see what you decide. If you find a spot where Jesus encouraged Rome or any other government (including churches) to force people to give to others, please send me an email. Otherwise, I think it is safe to say that Jesus did not encourage socialism but generosity.

In my next blog, I want to unpack this idea a little bit further. Please stay tuned!