You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.
Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. So, giving sacrificially to meet the needs of other people, that's a good thing, right? Well, generally, yes. But in the passage today, it doesn't turn out so well.
No, in fact, it turns out catastrophically bad. Let's find out what happened today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. This is More Than Ink. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. And again, we're glad you're with us. We are in the high drama of the Book of Acts. There's lots of stuff going down. And last week, we just finished some pretty interesting stuff in Chapter 4.
Why don't you catch us up on what we were reading last time? We just wrapped up Chapter 4 with Barnabas' example to the whole church, which is just evidence of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when we're told that he is a priest, but he owned property, probably in Cyprus, and he sold it and brought the whole price of the property and just laid at the apostles' feet for that cash to be distributed among those who had need. Now, that is happening among the whole community, but here, Barnabas is singled out. This is his introduction to us in the Book of Acts. As a man of great encouragement, he gives strength and comfort to others. Which is what his name means.
That's right. And Barnabas is his nickname. That's his nickname, but that's what he's going to be called from now on throughout the whole rest of the Book of Acts. Right, it's his new name. Right, he actually will travel with Paul.
He's just a fascinating guy. But he gave some land, and it was used by apostles to relieve the needs of those in the early church. And by the way, there's some speculation that the people who were in greatest need were people who may have stayed in Jerusalem at Pentecost, you know, the 3,000 then, and then there were 5,000 later. But a lot of outsiders, a lot of foreigners were in town at Pentecost who became believers and most likely stayed in Jerusalem well past that time. And so maybe it's full of refugees in that sense. We have religious refugees who want to stay here at the beginning of this great religious movement.
We don't know. So they would have no means of support. So some of these needs could have been that. But it's just a nice picture regardless of who's in need and why. It's a great picture of the fact that when you come to the Lord in your thankfulness for what he's done in rescuing you from sin and bringing him to yourself, you realize, you know, everything I have has come from God himself and makes it just natural for us to take that as stewards of what God has given and use that to relieve the needs of other people.
So that's what we saw last time. So Barnabas was a significant example of someone giving. Well, a big piece of property.
And today we're going to sell some more property. Well, and we're going to see what turns out to be a counterfeit example of Barnabas' generosity and free-hearted giving. And the names of these two people, Ananias and Sapphira, are kind of proverbial for Bible readers.
All you have to do is mention their names and everybody goes, oh yeah, and remembers the story. This event that we read today causes the church to shudder ever since. Big time. So it's time to read it. Let's find out what happened. We're starting in the beginning of chapter 5. So verse 1. But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet.
Let's stop right there and just describe what happened. So we mentioned last time Barnabas sold some land and gave it to the apostles. Well, Ananias and Sapphira, a married couple, they also sell some property, but they kept some back for themselves. Now there's nothing wrong with that.
I could sell a piece of property and say I'm going to give like 80% of it to the church and keep 20 because I just have needs right now, and there's nothing wrong with that. And that becomes very clear later on in the story. Right. Nothing is wrong with that. But there's something about how they kept that part back that makes us a problem.
And we'll see that. Let's just keep moving and see what happens in verse 3. Okay, verse 3. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?
And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.
Okay, let's stop there because that's important. So we have in verse 3 lying to the Holy Spirit and in verse 4 lying to God. What did he lie about? Well, he lied about being wholeheartedly devoted, right? Because he brought a part of the property and presented it as the whole.
As though it was the whole, right. But it's interesting that Peter looks at him and says, Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? When just previously we had been reading about the Holy Spirit filling the hearts of the new church so that everything that they had belonged to God and they were sharing with one another.
So here's Ananias apparently under the influence of the liar and the father of lies instead of the Holy Spirit filling him and leading him to do this thing that misrepresents the true character of what spirit is in him. And you know it's not a wrong thing to sell this property and to donate it for need. No, but Peter says that.
There's nothing wrong with that act at all but now he's mischaracterizing it. It's like if I had a house worth like a quarter million dollars and I tell the church, I'm going to sell it and I'm going to give it all to the church. But then you only give them not a quarter million but you give them like 200,000.
You keep 50,000 back. Oh, this is all of it. Absolutely this is all of it. Yes, yes.
I've sold my entire property. Well that's the heart of the thing. That he has presented himself as being this spiritual giant. Exactly. And doing this great spiritual thing when in reality he is acting as a hypocrite. Yeah, yeah and as a result, I mean the core issue here is pride.
I think in some sense what Ananias is looking for is to be heralded as much as Barnabas was. Recognized, yeah. You know I gave this very sacrifice.
I gave it all and here it is all of it but I kept some back. But his act is a counterfeit. But it's a counterfeit.
Yeah, it's a counterfeit. He's really more interested in that money. And again, there would be nothing wrong if he kept some of that money if he had a valid need and not give it away. But he wants the accolades of saying I gave it all. Peter really puts his finger on the lie, right?
The misrepresentation. And that he had predetermined it, right? He had decided ahead of time. This wasn't just, oh you know I've decided I'm going to keep some.
He says no, I'm going to. This was a plan beforehand with his wife's knowledge to keep back some of the proceeds. Yeah and it might have but we don't know. It might have been a pledge on Ananias' part saying, look apostles, I'm going to sell my piece of land and give it all for these needs. Yeah, we don't know that. We don't know that but there is this misrepresentation. So he's calling out the sin as not being the sale of the land and donation of the land.
The sin is the lie motivated by pride and suggested by Satan in his heart. Right, right. So that's what's going on here. So and Peter equates lying to the Holy Spirit and lying to God. Right. Which is significant. There's a little Trinity thing there.
There's a little moment there. Yeah, so you have to catch these because you'll find this going on all through Acts. This kind of, I call it a smearing. It's not a smearing, it's kind of an identification between the three parts of the Trinity all the time as though they're all the same thing. That's where the whole idea of the Trinity comes from. The growing recognition on the part of the church that, oh this Holy Spirit is the same Jesus we've been dealing with and we have already accepted Jesus as God in the flesh.
Right, right, right. So you know, I don't want to push this too hard but this really is a significant thing you have to keep your eyes out for when you're watching in Acts. You'll see their idea, the apostles' idea of who God the Father is, who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is.
Right. And they've just had very intimate knowledge of the Holy Spirit being filled by the Holy Spirit starting with the Pentecost event and on after that. So here they are in fellowship with the Holy Spirit and now he's saying that Holy Spirit isn't just some wandering spirit, we're talking about God himself in us. You see, that's a fascinating thing.
The Holy Spirit in us is God in us and Paul will make that point very boldly in his letters later on. But it's here, it's sprinkled all through here and you see it right there. So keep on your toes and watch for that because it's fascinating. So anyway, so. Well, the next thing that happens is utterly shocking.
Well, yes. Because look, what I would do if I was writing this story, I would take Ananias aside. If I was Peter, I'd say, look, man, we understand. We know that this isn't all the money you sold.
I mean, why are you lying? Why don't you just repent and confess, oh, I'm sorry, Peter, I didn't mean it. Okay, and repent and do it quiet and then we'll move on from there. But what happens next is not private and it's not gentle. No.
It's extraordinarily public. And this is Peter, Peter didn't cause this, right? This is the activity of the Holy Spirit.
Right, because so far that's all Peter has done. He's just confronted him about the sin and in a supernatural way knew about the sin. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes that there's different gifts.
There's actually a gift of knowledge. And so here he has knowledge that he really shouldn't have that came from the Spirit. And all he's done is confront him about the sin. He hasn't said, and here's the penalty and this is what's going to happen to you.
He doesn't even give him a prescribed course of action. Okay, so what happened? Verse 5. Here we go. And Ananias heard these words.
You've not lied to man but to God. He fell down and breathed his last. What? He died, right?
In front of everybody. He died. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. Done and buried. This is what you do in the first century.
You bury them the same day they died. Right, right. But great fear and I suggest this is the purpose of this event in a very public kind of way is to really sober people about the knowledge that God is in our midst. And he sees our hearts. He sees what we're doing.
Well, it drives home that this Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. He cannot be fooled. He cannot be lied to. Right.
There's no place to hide. Right, right. So, shall we go on to verse 7? Because the story's not over.
I just want to underscore what you said previously, though. This judgment is not Peter's doing. This is God's. Peter's role in this whole thing was just to speak the truth. And he may have been as shocked as everybody else. That's what I wanted to say. I think he was.
I think he was more surprised than anybody else that this guy just fell down dead in front of him. I mean, holy smokes, really? But that's not the end of the story.
Okay, so. Verse 7. After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.
And she said yes for so much. But Peter said to her, How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door and they will carry you out. And immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in, they found her dead and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things. Yow.
Yow. So, God, you know, Peter doesn't show kindness to the sake of Sapphira for the sake of her suddenly being a widow. He just asks her because she knows nothing.
You know, is this what you sold it for? And she says, yeah, absolutely. And he somehow, by the power of the Spirit, knows that she's in collusion. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I'm stunned every time that I read this because I think about the fact that this is really, this is an unusual thing for God to do. Right. God doesn't just go around striking people dead all the time. Right. Because, you know, if that were going to be the case, then every Sunday morning there would be dozens of people dead on the floor.
Oh my goodness. Because of sins executed that week, you know, and confronted with the leadership of the church. And there wouldn't be anybody in church.
There wouldn't be anybody. So, you have to understand this is an unusual thing. Now, that's not because God is soft on sin. He's really tough on sin. He's unremitting on sin. But a lot of that judgment is being saved till, well, till judgment day.
Okay. But look at what we learned, though, about the Holy Spirit. That lying to Him comes from a source of opposition to Him, right, from the liar and the father of lies. That He cannot be lied to.
He knows everything already. And He will act independently according to His own purposes. Yeah, exactly. And not only that, but He's acting in a way to cause problems with the church internally. You know, we just came from scenes where the religious leadership at the time externally were causing problems in opposition. But what we don't realize until this very moment is the fact that Satan is actively engaged in combating the church, the growing church, internal to the church by these suggestions of pride and sin. And so the Spirit is teaching them to fear Him properly. Yes, exactly. To realize, you know, from what I was saying is that the threats are not sheerly external.
Right. The threats internal to the church that have to do with the fact that Satan is present in the hearts of some people in the church and you've got to be on your toes. And by making this such a public, such an astonishingly public and just jaw-dropping event, people kind of sobered up and said, wow, okay, this is a big deal that's going on. God sees what's going on. Which is why when He says great fear came upon the whole church, I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, in a sense, not fearful that the next day they're all going to be structured because of the sins they do the next day.
Not that kind of way. This is the fear that says, you know, God is sovereign and He is in control and He sees the hearts of every member in His new church that's growing. He still is the Lord of everything. Right.
This is not some splinter thing going off and we're out of control. He's very much involved in the heart of the church and its members. And here it's just unavoidable that that's the case. So, I mean, there's so many lessons that the church came away with. And I might point out, too, the fact that in verse 11 it says great fear came upon the whole church.
That word church is the first time it's going to be used in Acts. And so we might just highlight it. It's this word ekklesia, which means the ones who are called out. Right. They're called out. And so they're together, but not just together like called together. They're called out of the culture and the society that's there.
This is a new thing. They are, in a real sense, no longer part of that society. They have just joined a new society, a new culture, and a new community.
There's never been a community like this before in the history of mankind. Right. Because these are people who are literally indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God. Right. And that makes them called out. Not just called together, which they are, but actually called away from what they used to live in, even though they're going to continue to live in the circumstance.
But something about them in terms of their citizenship has changed radically, and they're called out together. Well, that then makes it evident why Satan, like a prowling lion, is seeking someone to devour. Right.
He's looking for a way to penetrate this new community. Right. It's a very subversive, very subversive attempt, strategically on Satan's part. Yeah.
And that continues to this very day. You know, we see churches destroyed based on what Satan does internal to the church, not because of external attacks, but because of internal influences. Let me go back and point out a couple things before we move on. You know, Sapphira agreed with her husband to do this, and we talk a lot about wives submitting to their husbands. This is not a category where you should submit to your husband right here.
Right? Lying to the Holy Spirit? She agreed with her husband to lie. You know, he probably just said, when someone asks you, what would that property worth, tell them this.
Don't tell them this. Because he has enlisted her to lie. Right. And some people would say, well, doesn't the Bible say that wives are supposed to be submissive to their husbands? Wasn't she being submissive to her husband here? No. Not in this case because he was instructing her to lie, to sin against God. So no.
So this is outside that concern. I just want to point that out just in case you're thinking, well, she was just being an obedient wife, and that's what you're supposed to do as a Christian, right? No. Not when it comes to sin against God. No.
Maybe we need to do a whole conversation on that on another date. Exactly. Yeah. And one more kind of provocative question before we move out of Ananias and Sapphira. The speculation, the question is this. Did Ananias and Sapphira go to heaven? You know, the text doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us. Were they authentic believers who were just ensnared by Satan, and God took their breath away, and instructing to the church?
Or were they counterfeit believers who were in among the community? The text doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us. We don't know.
It doesn't tell us. So it would be wrong to form a conclusion. Right.
It's just an interesting thing to scratch your chin about, you know. And we do know that once you are God's, you know, once your name is written in the Book of Life, then no amount of sin you do after that fact can reverse that. So in that sense, technically it could be possible that they've sinned in this way, and God just says, you know, sorry to shorten your life, but I need to send a very strong message. So we're stopping your earthly life early. But they could still be believers.
Or this could be the judgment against the fact that maybe they were never believers. We just don't know. We just don't know.
But it's a fascinating question. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. We need to not belabor that.
No, no, no. We'll get to the rest of the passage. No, it's just I like to surface questions that cause me to wonder. But it is a good question. But what I want to say is that it would be wrong for us to form a concrete conclusion because we do not have all that information.
No, we don't. All we know is how they presented themselves and how the Spirit responded. Right, right. However, I might point out that God allowed Lazarus to die. That's right. For a great purpose. Now, he came back to life, you would say, and that's true. He had to die again. That's right.
But it would be beyond God in a sense to say, I have a very important purpose involved in your death. So here we go. I could just reopen that. Well, let's push on. What do you say?
Okay. Oh, golly, now I want to talk about all kinds of other things. Let's read on and stick to Acts 5 because we were just told in verse 11, the great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things. Now, many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats. And as Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed. Wow.
Wow. So the signs and wonders continue on as they speak boldly about who Jesus is. Many signs and wonders were regularly done. Who all was it that was gathered in Solomon's portico? Because that was like a covered porch area adjacent to the temple.
It was a covered porch. Because it says none of the rest joined them, but the people held them in high esteem. So is that only the apostles who were gathered there and doing these things? I don't know.
Or what? It's a little unclear. But according to 13, we do know that there were some people who were kind of spooked out by going out there and speaking so boldly, as well as being accompanied by all these signs and wonders. But the Lord was adding to the number of believers, right? Whether they were actually then identifying and congregating right there with the apostles in that portico, we're not told.
But multitudes were being added. Yeah. And you have to realize, since we've already gone through this one occasion where they were arrested, Peter and John were arrested by the leaders in the temple area, this is just provoking it big time. Because they're right there still in the temple.
Yeah. At Solomon's portico, you're not doing anything privately. You're very, very public. So the same guys who were kind of tweaked about the fact that Peter and John were given all this credit to Jesus are watching this going on in Solomon's portico. So some didn't dare to do that. That was bold with a capital B. But it doesn't say they didn't believe. No, no, no, no, no.
Not at all. But they just were not yet bold enough to be identified. They held them in high esteem.
So that's okay. The church is learning how to speak boldly and some are doing it and some are not. I might point out, too, the signs and wonders that start off in 12 doesn't say that the apostles were doing miracles. It says that miracles were happening through their hands. So they were kind of passive conduits of what's going on.
They're not the ones. So the grammar of how he phrases that really tells us very strongly that this is God doing this. And he used the apostles in the context of that, but the apostles were not responsible for these miracles.
So it was just through them by their hands. Which is actually the same thing that Peter described as happening when they had healed a lame man days before. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
It's not them doing it. He's just being very careful about the fact that you don't over assign the responsibility to the apostles because that's just not what's going on. So what do you make of the fact that they dragged people out to be hit by Peter's shadow? Well, you know, to me it's in the same category as the woman who touched the edge of Jesus' car. I mean there really is no theological import to the shadow or the edge of his coat or something like that. But in a real way these things in a way, I don't know how to say this well enough, sort of actualize their faith in Jesus. That's what I'm going to say. And that's kind of a fuzzy word even by itself. But it's part of the component of them being able to exercise their faith.
So that's okay. But the shadow didn't have to be there. They could have been in their houses. It's true. They could have just been in the proximity. Exactly.
That the spirit was so active and so overwhelmingly so that these supernatural things were taking place. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And they were in proximity to the apostles. Right. Which is the important component behind why these miracles and signs were happening was to give them credibility. So when people... As the eyewitnesses. Right.
So when the shadow passed they would attribute it to, well, this Peter guy must have something going on with God. Right. Right. Yeah.
So that's all I can say. But you know what struck me here when it says, and they were bringing people from all the towns, the sick and the afflicted, with unclean spirits, that's just like Jesus. Just like Jesus. Exactly. Yeah. The way the ministry of Jesus is described. Yeah.
So again, I think Luke is just driving home for us. This is just the continuation of the ministry of Jesus. Right. And when Paul calls the collection of believers the body of Christ, literally the body of Christ, in a way you could say that this is in a way the second incarnation. Right.
Where the Holy Spirit is now living through many people in whom he's dwelling, not just in the body of Jesus himself. So yeah. The way he says verse 16 kind of tells you he's trying to connect to it. This is Jesus still operating. This is Jesus doing it.
Yeah. So verse 17, but the high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is the party of the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. Here we go again. Here we go again. This is, we're locked up again. This is the beginning of a pattern. So those who dared not join them, they knew how this was going to turn out and this is how it turned out.
And so that's the thing, you speak boldly and speak in a way that people don't want you to talk. You're going to get arrested and so we're arrested all over again. He says they arrested the apostles. It sounds like maybe all of them. Sounds like it. Or maybe those who had their mouths open at the time.
It could be a bunch of them, yeah. So yeah, this is very predictable. So they're going to be in trouble again. Now there's going to be a new kind of conflict with the leadership. But I do note in this particular case in 17 as opposed to the last time, the high priest rose up.
I mean the guy who was in charge of everything said we have had it with these guys. And all who were with him, the party of the Sadducees, who we know did not believe in the resurrection. So that tells us the resurrection is still central to the message here. And is there concern the fact that doctrine has been swayed off into heresy?
No. Because right there in verse 17, their motivation is jealousy. So we'll find out how this jealousy gets worked out as the apostles are thrown into prison. And you're just going to have to join us next time to see how it works out. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we'll see you next time on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. That's not helpful. That's not helpful. Okay, we're doing it again, Mr. Recording. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
