In the preface to the second edition, the author states that, “Almost thirty years have passed since Sharing Possessions first appeared in 1981. This second edition provides the opportunity to reflect on the circumstances of its composition, its character, and the author’s appreciation of a work undertaken in (relative) youth rather than (creeping) senescence.

The book arose out of two specific and personal factors. The first was my recent completion of a dissertation, The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts (Yale, 1976). More importantly when I wrote this book, I was in a period of difficult personal adjustment with respect to possessions. I had been a Benedictine monk living within a community of possessions. But now I was married with seven children (six of them inherited), and responsible for acquiring and disposing of possessions in a manner I had never anticipated while living as a monk.”

The book contains four sections: Searching for a Mandate, Towards a Theological Understanding of Possessions, Sharing Possessions: Mandate and Symbol of Faith, and Critical Observations on the Community of Goods and Almsgiving.

There are no pat answers to be found. The author acknowledges that, “The Scriptures do not present for our consideration or implementation any grand scheme for the proper disposition of possessions. There is no Christian economic structure found in the Bible, any more that there is a Christian political structure or education system. The Bible does not tell us how to organise our lives together, and still less which things we should call private and public. Nor does it propose a clear programme for social change. It does not even present one way of sharing possessions as uniquely appropriate. A Christian social ethic must be forged (repeatedly, as in theology) within the tension established by two realities: the demands of faith in the one God who creates, sustains, and saves us, and the concrete, changing structures of the world we encounter in every age.” 

To assist us to do this, the second edition contains an epilogue where the author responds to criticisms leveled at the first edition, and an outline of other books written on the topic in the period leading up to the second edition.

By Luke Timothy Johnson
Erdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 2011
ISBN 978-0-8028-0399-3

– David McLeod-Jones