This thesis is a project in narrative New Testament ethics. It offers a fresh reading of the material in Luke-Acts that concerns wealth and possessions, beginning with two primary premises, which are developed in Part 1: (1) The descriptive and synthetic activities traditionally accorded to New Testament ethics are not fully separable from the hermeneutical and pragmatic concerns usually considered the domain of theological ethics. (2) The conceptualizations of the moral life readers bring with them to the biblical text will influence the reading strategies they employ and thus the critical readings that result. Based on these premises, this thesis reads Luke-Acts with a contemporary, pragmatic ethical question in view, "What attitudes, dispositions, and practices should members of Christian communities in North America at the beginning of the third Christian millennium adopt in an environment of personal and societal affluence, capitalist consumerism, and economic globalization?" Furthermore, it approaches Luke-Acts in terms of a narratively-based ethics of character, based on the work of Alasdair Maclntyre and Stanley Hauerwas. A concluding chapter in Part 1 locates Luke's narrative moral discourse within the moral discourse of narrative literature in New Testament literary environment. / Part 2 begins by surveying recent readings of the possessions theme in Luke-Acts, highlighting the problem of presenting a consistent reading of the diverse material related to this theme in Luke's narrative. Employing a narrative-critical methodology that presents a sequential reading of the material related to this theme in the form of close readings of important episodes, it demonstrates that by reading this material in terms of the premises established in Part 1 a coherent reading is possible. Reading Luke-Acts as narrative discourse yields a coherent yet complex view of material possessions which understands them as a spiritual and moral peril to those who fall under their sway, while simultaneously showing them to be a divine gift that may be used in diverse ways to sustain human well-being. A concluding chapter summarizes these findings and makes suggestions concerning the usefulness of this reading in the moral formation of the contemporary community of faith.

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