Right, and then they distributed it among the people so they all had enough. People with property sold it. People without property didn't sell it (because they

Right, and then they distributed it among the people so they all had enough. People with property sold it. People without property didn't sell it (because they didn't have any to sell). The apostles took the money and gave it to those in need. It wasn't a black hole of money where the apostles took it and used it to pay rent on a church building that people were encouraged to visit, the distribution was to people to meet their needs. Without having been there, I imagine that the way this played out was that everyone gave everything they had, then the apostles worked out what the needs of everyone were, and then divided things up so everyone's needs were met. If people tried to hold something back then this just makes the practical matter of dividing things up much harder (instead of being able to say "each family gets N things plus M things per child", they need to take into account whether the family already has stuff and reduce N and M to compensate). Yes, the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not that they made logistics difficult, but I do believe that what they wanted to be able to do was to just do a simple job of just distributing things fairly and transparently, and people holding things back made that impossible. Giving money to a church makes a lot of sense, and is clearly biblical. Using that money wisely also makes lots of sense and is biblical. Churches that invest this money in expensive mixing desks or outrageous rent when there are people in their congregation who don't even have a place to sleep are not making good use of the money they are being given. My opinion is that if a church has a regular person in their congregation who is lacking food and shelter, and the church is collecting money from people to spend on things like sound desks and coffee machines, then that church is stealing. People who give money to a church are giving it with the expectation that it be used in a way which is in line with biblical principles, and to be spending it on luxuries for the affluent when there is such obvious need is unconscionable.