Group 8 — The Acts of the Apostles

N=1 book-group distillation. Source: WEB, Gutenberg #8294. Quotes pending Phase 7 audit. Tags: ../00-methodology.md. Per-episode depth is Stage-B.

Group role

Acts narrates the birth and spread of the church after the resurrection. As narrative, its principle density is low, but it supplies the canon's portrait of koinōnia — the shared common life of the first believers — including the holding of goods in common, a concrete enactment of love and a seed of the later "universal destination of goods."

Atomic statements

G8-C1: The early church devoted itself to a shared life — teaching, koinōnia (fellowship), breaking of bread, and prayer. (FOUNDATIONAL / CHURCH)

• Acts 2:42: "They continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer."
• Stance: assert · Importance: core · Untranslatable: koinōnia (WEB: "fellowship")

G8-C2: The believers were "of one heart and soul," holding goods in common so none was in need. (OPERATIONAL / CHURCH+JUSTICE)

• Acts 4:32: "The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common."
• Stance: assert · Importance: core

Step 4 — Clusters

Cluster	Atomic statements	Intent
Communion (koinōnia)	G8-C1, C2	The church is a shared life: worship, fellowship, and goods held in common

Step 5 — Internal tensions

None genuine within this group. (The later epistles will qualify the common-purse practice, but Acts presents it as exemplary.)

Step 6 — Synthesized group principles

G8-P1: The church is a communion (koinōnia) of shared life

The believers devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer — a corporate, sacramental common life, not merely a set of individuals who agree.

• Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: CHURCH · Covers: G8-C1 · Evidence: Acts 2:42 · Untranslatable: koinōnia

G8-P2: Love takes economic form — goods shared so none is in need

"Of one heart and soul," the believers held "all things in common"; love is enacted concretely in the sharing of possessions so that no member lacks — a scriptural seed of the universal destination of goods.

• Tier: OPERATIONAL · Domain: CHURCH+JUSTICE · Covers: G8-C2 · Evidence: Acts 4:32

Step 7 — Traceability

Principle	Atomic statements	Verses
G8-P1	C1	Acts 2:42
G8-P2	C2	Acts 4:32

Step 8 — Quality

• Coverage: the koinōnia portrait is captured; the missionary journeys, Pentecost, and the speeches/trials are orphaned at this granularity (Stage-B).
• Principles: 2.
• Traceability: 100%.

Step 9 — Validation

• Frame-independent: G8-P2 (share so none is in need) reads as an intelligible economic-ethical ideal and converges with communitarian and justice traditions broadly.
• Claim-vs-warrant flag: shared goods (P2) converges in claim with many traditions' almsgiving/redistribution norms (cf. the universal-destination-of-goods reading in Catholic Social Doctrine; Jewish jubilee; Islamic zakāt); warrant here is koinōnia in the risen Christ (a communion grounded in the resurrection and the Spirit), distinctively ecclesial.