One time, I got into a discussion with a guy who told me that Christianity was a form of communism, and that, as a result, Jesus was Himself a communist. After I recovered from the initial shock of that statement, He went on to argue his point from a couple basic angles.
First, Jesus never seemed to own any kind of property. Whatever He has, he gives to others. Second, the church distributed their goods to everyone that went along with them, such as the feeding of the 5,000.
And third—here comes the major point—it was all done equally. Nobody had more, nobody had less. It was all equal. One of the alleged proof Texts for this is found in Acts 4:32-36, where the Apostles distributed to everyone as they had need.
At first glance, the whole setup does seem slightly communistic (although that word is foreign to any kind of New Testament thinking). The problem becomes when you drill down, and find out that the sharing amongst each other was not so that everyone could be even, but so that nobody had lack. Remember, the specific phrase there is “as anyone had need.” The difference is huge.
This type of equality is different than what we see today. We want everyone to have the exact same amount of resources across the board, but that’s not reality. Some are wealthy, some are poor, but the point of sharing is that nobody has a need. The basic necessities of life—food, shelter, clothing, etc—can be shared by those who have to those who have not.
This was the idea in 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, when Paul talks about one church giving to another church. The first church didn’t make it even across the board, they simply gave of what they had to supply what was lacking (in terms of a need) to someone else.
I know this seems like a roundabout way to get back to where we are in Exodus 16:20, but the exact same situation exists here with regard to the manna. When it fell from Heaven, the people gathered it up proportionally. Some gathered a little, some gathered a lot, but everyone gathered as much as they needed (Exodus 16:18).
It shows a different side to the providence of God, that He doesn’t just give us what we want, but what we need. And for every single person that went out to gather manna that day, that’s what they got. No more, and no less.
