The Early Christian Community: A Narrative Analysis of Acts 2:41-47 and 4:32-35

Douglas A. Hume offers a narrative ethical reading of the passages depicting the early Christian community in Acts (2:41-47 and 4:32-35). He begins with a methodological exploration of how contemporary scholars may examine the impact of biblical narratives upon reader’s moral imaginations. Given the presence of friendship language in Acts, the work subsequently launches into an examination of this idiom in Greco-Roman philosophical and literary works by Aristotle, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Iamblichus. The author then proceeds to an exegetical examination of how friendship language is employed by Luke in the narrative summaries of Acts. This ethical reading of the Acts 2:41-47 and 4:32-35 incorporates multiple features of narrative criticism and asks such wide ranging questions as the use of emotion, point of view, and characterization to shape the reading audience’s perception of God, the early Christian community, and other characters within the story of Luke-Acts. This study has implications for biblical studies, practical theology, and contemporary understandings of ecclesiology.