Every verb in the summary of Acts 4:32-35 is in the imperfect tense, but in 4:36 Luke shifts back to the aorist tense—a signal that Barnabas’s gift is both a specific example of a general trend sketched in the summary and the immediate introduction (instigation) to the hypocritical generosity of Ananias & Sapphira (5:1-11).  In 5:12-16—another summary—the characteristic verb tense is the imperfect.  Johnson, Acts in History of Rdmptn

 

It is clear, from many “clues” in the text, that the early church was not any formal kind of communism or socialism.  However, we must not minimize the fact that their love made them almost de facto communalists.  Their life together was intimate in the extreme.    --Tim Keller