Acts 5:1-11

Ananias and Sapphira
1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.



Dig Deeper
I really don’t know why, but I always kind of enjoy at the end of a television show or movie when they show some of the blooper out takes that took place during filming. If nothing else it is always a great reminder that the actors are not perfect. They are real human beings who make mistakes and fall short.

In the book of Acts, Luke was attempting to give a photo album, so to speak, of the family of God as it came together and was formed into the kingdom people that God desired for them to be. Incredible things happened and these ordinary people experienced amazing things and did unbelievable things themselves. But Luke was a realist. He was not trying to present a glossed-over picture of unrealistically perfect people. This was an amazing community that was coming together as God’s family but not everything was perfect. Just as Luke did not shy away from writing about embarrassing details in the Gospel of Luke such as the failures of the apostles and the fact that a group of women were the first and best witnesses of the resurrection (an embarrassing fact in the first century), so he will not shy away from the true, albeit less-than-perfect details of the formative days of God’s family.

In the previous passage, Luke wanted us to see that, whether they realized it at the time or not, the new Christian community had become a living breathing fulfillment of passages like Isaiah 56:3-7. Isaiah declared, “Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely exclude me from his people’. . . to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants. . . these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. . . for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (see also Isa. 61:1 for another important passage that the Christian community was emboyding). The time of bringing in the Gentiles to the family of God had not yet fully begun but they had already begun to become that house of prayer for all nations where any and everyone could join God’s household and no longer be excluded (see Eph. 2:19).

In a sense, what Luke is telling us is that in becoming the fulfillment of passages like this, the people of God had become the Temple of the Lord. The Temple, after all, was a symbol for the place where God’s presence was being made manifest. During the Old Testament era, that was in the physical structure of the building called the Temple (the Tabernacle before the Temple was built). During Jesus’ life, he had declared himself to be the Temple of God (Jn. 2:19), and eventually Paul would take to specifically calling the church the Temple of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 6:16).

But as we come to this passage, we have to wonder what on earth is going on. Admittedly, at first glance, this is one of the most confusing and difficult passages in the entire New Testament. Why would Luke record this? Why would Ananias and Sapphira have dropped dead right on the spot? It is so confusing, in fact, that some biblical commentators have chalked it up to being a mere legend that was invented by Luke or by the early church in order to scare the community into right behavior.

This story almost seems a little harsh and pointless. That is unless, we understand what was truly going and what Luke wants his readers to really see about God’s people.

To fully understand this scene we have to go back to few scenes in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 10:1-3 we find the description of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu at the begin of the priestly ministry of the Tabernacle. After offering an unauthorized fire before the Lord, they were immediately struck dead by the consuming fire of the Lord. In 2 Samuel 6:6-9 we are told of the important moment when the Ark of the Covenant was finally being brought into Jerusalem. The people had been told not to touch the Ark but as it rocked a bit as it was being carried, Uzzah disobediently reached out and grabbed the Ark, immediately falling dead. Then there is the incident when Uzziah the king of Judah pridefully strode into the Temple and offered up incense on the Lord’s altar. Those around him rebuked him for such an impudent act but as he was raging at them, he broke out into leprosy and, says the book of Samuel, had leprosy until he died (2 Chron. 26:16-21).

These incidents were rare but important. There were certain significant moments when people violated the Temple and the holy presence of the Lord and put themselves and the entire nation at risk. They were dealt with justly but swiftly to serve as a warning for the rest of the nation to keep them from taking the Lord lightly. This doesn’t mean that every time the Temple was violated or the Lord disregarded that the punishment was immediate death. These were cases that happened as examples so that all people could see the serious effects of disobedience and sin towards God. They were not normative events but were specific warnings to the people. If they wanted to be the people of God and be the people of the Temple of God’s presence then that was no small thing. The presence of God is powerful beyond imagination and dangerous to those who take it lightly. They could not have the benefits of being God’s people without the responsibility of it.

It would appear that what Luke wants us to see in this historical incident is that this newly forming church was functioning as the Temple of God. They had become the house of prayer that God had promised through the prophet Isaiah and in so doing they had become the dwelling place of the presence of the Lord. This is precisely what Paul would later confirm when writing the church in Corinth: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

The issue of Ananias and Sapphira’s actions was not in that they kept some of the money of their land sale. It was in that they lied. The sharing of possessions as family was certainly the ethic of the early church and the common practice but it was never required. It couldn’t be required for as soon as it was a requirement it would cease to be from the heart and out of gratitude for what God had done for them through the resurrection of Jesus as he shared his inheritance with those who would enter into Christ. That’s why giving for Christians is never required in the New Testament (sorry, but the “tithe” is never listed as a requirement for the New Testament people). Rather than a required giving or a tithe, the new family of God is called to an entirely different view of wealth and possessions (see yesterday for a fuller discussion of that) and to a giving and generosity far different and far beyond simply giving a weekly tithe.

Ananias and Sapphira had every right to sell their land and give some to the church. But they chose another way. No doubt impressed by others such as Barnabas who were selling their lands and possessions and giving all they had to the church (Acts 4:32-37), Ananias and Sapphira apparently wanted the recognition of being so deeply and fully committed to God’s people, the Temple of the living God. They wanted to appear to be part of God’s family where people were being called to live for one another but instead they would actually continue to live for themselves and think of themselves as separate from the body. In other words, they were working against the very thing that the Holy Spirit was at work to create them to be. It is the role of the Spirit to bind together the people of God as a family (see Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6; 2 Cor. 13:14) and this married couple wanted to pretend to be part of that family while still living their lives for themselves first. Some have wondered about the fairness of this scene as the married couple had no apparent opportunity for repentance. We must defer to God’s perfect knowledge and justice here and the fact that God knows if someone will repent or not and has every right as God of when and how to punish someone for their sin. In addition, the meeting with Peter was their chance to come clean and repent and they continued to lie.

They had quite literally lied to the church, but the church was the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit so it was really God that they had lied to. This shows us two important truths. The first is a theological one. Luke makes no distinction between the Holy Spirit and God. They are separate beings but one in essence as he gives early voice to the Trinitarian concept of the Holy Spirit and God by referring interchangeably to them being lied to in verses 3 and 4. The second truth is that it was a serious thing to lie to the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, the church. To pretend to be part of the family but not really be committed to that was a dangerous thing. So, just as he had in the Old Covenant days, God would allow an example to be experienced by some so that a warning could stand to the entire community. Attempts to misuse or denigrate the Temple of the living God would do spiritually to them what had happened physically to Ananias and Sapphira as an example. They were becoming the dwelling place of the Living God and there were obvious advantages and incredible things that came along with that, but there was also a terrible responsibility. They had better tread lightly.

As we read this account and see the incredible reverence that we are to have for God’s Temple, it is easy to become somewhat frightened. In fact, many people find this passage to be rather frightening. If you find that to be true, then Luke would likely say “good.” That’s why he included this passage. One should know the power that they are encountering. The early Christian community trembled in fear when they realized how powerful was the God that was living among and within them. Our response should be no less.


Devotional Thought
What does this passage tell us about how we should view the community of God’s people? Do you truly view the body of Christ as the Temple of the living God and act that way towards it?