Acts 4:32-5:11
Last week we when we left the new Christians they had just seen their leaders chastised by the Jewish Supreme Court and were singing and praising God for it. They asked God for courage to carry on doing what they were for Him, and they had no intention of following the orders of the court to stop preaching. The New Testament church at this point is strong, unified and pure. This is especially hammered home by verse Acts 4:32.
When we read the Old Testament accounts of the great heroes of the faith we see an interesting pattern. Moses for example stands up to Pharaoh and leads all of Israel to freedom, but later we read that he defies God and is punished. David is the greatest king, even held up to be an example of a man after God’s own heart, and yet we read about his affair and the murder to cover it up. His son Solomon was the wisest man to ever live, many came from afar just to ask him questions, and yet the book of Ecclesiastes put on display for us all the foolishness in his life.
In no place does the Bible ever try to cover up the sinful nature of this world, and the imperfections of the people that make up God’s church here on earth. A human historian writing to produce a perfect God and religion would likely not have included all the bad things that we read, but a Holy God focused on a perfect recording of events that actually happened would by His very nature have to include them. This is just another supporting fact that the Bible is what it claims to be, the Word of God.
In our section today we will seen another of these dark spots on the perfect tapestry of the faith. The church in Acts 4:32-37 is at the height of its purity. Unlike today’s church, this church appears to be made up completely of saved believers, who are all in agreement. The power this church has because of this will be displayed as we read on. I fear our modern day churches can never hope to reach these same heights because we are not a pure church of saved believers any more. We are a mix of saved and unsaved, and there is no unity. Instead we all compete to have the most bottoms in our pews, or the best looking buildings.
In this great environment we meet a new hero of the faith, Barnabas, who was a Levite from Cyprus. He sells some land and donates the proceeds from the sale to the church. Barnabas later would be the brother that brings Saul of Taurus, later to be known as Paul, in to the church and they would travel together for some time spreading the Gospel. For now it appears he is just getting started, and likely is just another church member. The fact that he is a Levite and has land to sell is an interesting side note because under Old Testament law Levites were forbidden to own land. Obviously at some point before this account that law was no longer in practice but it is unclear when that happened or why.
Barnabas sells this land, and puts all the proceeds before Peter’s feet as an offering unto the Lord. This is not a model for what we are to do today, but a description of what Barnabas did. In other words, just because one person is lead by the spirit to do something, does not mean that everyone should copy it. While God may still ask some people today to sell their land, he may ask others to buy land. God has an over arching plan that he is working through, and each person has their role to play. If a born again believer strives to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, then they will have no need to worry about how much or how little they give, the Spirit will tell them what is right for them.
That point is important as we enter the next section of this story. In Acts 5:1-5:11 we read the account of two more members of the church, Ananias and Sapphira, that also sell land and put the money at the feet of Peter. Instead of Peter being grateful for what the church received, he was angry and accused them of holding back some of the money. In response God kills both of them, and they are buried that same day. A quick reading of this might make one stop and say, “Wow that a greedy and unforgiving people these Christians are!” which is to completely miss the point of the account.
Peter makes it clear in his comments that they never had to sell the land, and selling the land they never were asked to give it all to the church. Meaning they could have done exactly what they did, kept whatever part they did, and merely told the truth to the church that they are giving a part of the sell to the fellowship. Instead not only did they lie, but it is apparent that the husband and wife planed this all out as a deliberate deception. It takes time to sell land, this is not something that under the pressure of an instant they crumbled, this was a carefully engineered plan.
At this point it is natural to want to ask some “why” questions. The easiest one to ask at this point is, “why did they do it?” Acts 5:3 says that Satan tempted them to lie, but in the end it still was their choice. One possible reason is that they saw the praise and honor given to Barnabas’s gift and they might have figured they could be praised the same way. Our text does not say, but that appears to be the most reasonable explanation based on what we know.
Another question that gets asked of this passage frequently is if the two that were struck down were saved. Some will tell you that Acts 4:32-36 clearly implies that all that were part of the church were born again believers and since these two were part of the church, they must have been believers. Others will point to the comment by Peter that Satan filled Ananias’ heart and that Satan cannot fill a heart of a believer since God is already there so that he obviously was not a believer. The text does not explicitly state either way, and the arguments for both are solid, so we will just have to answer this one with “we do not know.”
The biggest question from this passage is “Why did God judge this set of liars so harshly, while others today go unpunished?” There are a few things here that are different from today’s church, and those that lie to the church today. The most obvious difference is the purity of the church at the time of this account. We simply do not see any church today that is filled purely of, or even mostly filled with sold out spirit filled believers, which is why the church today has so much less power then it should.
The second big difference is that this is the very first church. All future churches will model themselves after it. Christianity as we know it today has all of its roots in this church. This church will become the foundation of our modern day practices and will be often used to instruct others on how to do church God’s way. This makes it important to get this church right. Mistakes here would propagate out across thousands of years, and billions of lives. While our text does not give the answer to “why”, I personally think the situation demanded it in order to build a solid foundation for the generations to come.
Ananias and Sapphira lied to God and were immediately punished for it. This should be a clear warning for us; even among believers sin will not go unpunished. It may be delayed, but it is not forgotten or over looked. It is only through the forgiveness available from Jesus that we can ever hope to escape the punishment we deserve as all have sinned, and most, if not all of us could point to “bigger” sins then the lie of Ananias and Sapphira.
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