“And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need” (Acts 2: 44, 45 KJV). (And Acts 4: 32).
A brief definition of communism is “a state of things in which no separate individual rights of property exists, all property and substance being held in common; socialism.
Communism, according to our text, was first practiced by the first century church. This was not the communism that we know of today in which people are enslaved by a repressive dictator who, along with a group of elitest control their everyday lives. The church communism was the work of God’s grace in which church members who had more than enough gave freely and out of love to others less fortunate than themselves. This was when the church was poor, and before it became the billion-dollar business, it is today with pastors who are millionaires. But this communism failed. Some of the Grecian widows were being neglected, and godly men had to be called to make sure everyone was taken care of (Acts 6).
Communism was first tried when the Pilgrims settled in New England, and the people starved, for few labored but all ate. William Bradford in 1623 “decided that each household should be assigned its own plot to cultivate, with the understanding that each family kept whatever it grew.” He stumbled upon the power of capitalism and the inhabitants never starved again. They put into practice the biblical principle that if a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat either.
Socialism is “the practice of public ownership of means of production and distribution, the stage of society coming between the capitalist and the communist stages.” In other words, socialism is the enemy of capitalism and paves the way for communism. When we see society adapting to socialism we know communism is riding its coattails.
“Socialism has generally been applied to those who only propose to interfere with labor by abolishing competition and wages, leaving men to work under the influence of public spirit, and making an equal division of the product.” The term Communist, “is applied to those who go further and propose to abolish the relationship of husband and wife, along with the system of domestic government founded on the parental authority.”
Robert Owens who published his works on Communism in 1813 said, “The affections of parents for their own children are too strong for their judgments ever to do justice to themselves, their children, or the public in the education of their own offspring.” Communist have always believed that once the state became socialist and then communist it would do a better job at raising and educating the children than the parents.
What we see unfolding before our very eyes in America is socialism in the doorway and communism coming in close behind it. The attempt of the state to control your children and hide from parents their activities is not happenstance but communism alive and well in America. It’s almost too late to fight against communism in America. But better late than never.
