The Acts, Part 10

Last time, we saw people in the church giving to the church so the needs of those in the church could be met (again, I will note the main focus was to care for those believers in the church in need). The scripture tells us NO ONE was in need, because their needs were being taken care of - even to the extent of Barnabas selling land and giving all the proceeds so others could be cared for. Now this week, we see a change in the context - a change of heart of two, a husband and wife, who didn’t want to be outdone. Instead, they were willing to lie to the people so they could look good without worrying of the possible downfall it may bring. If Barnabas was a positive example of the community’s sharing, the story of Ananias and Sapphira provides a sharp contrast. They too sold a piece of property, pledging the proceeds to the community of believers. But they held back part of the proceeds; and a terrible judgment followed, resulting in both their deaths. Perhaps no passage in Acts raises more serious difficulties for Christian readers. The judgment on these two seems so harsh, so nonredemptive, so out of keeping with the gospel. It will be necessary to return to this question; but in order to make an accurate assessment, it would be wise first to look at the passage itself and examine what it seems to say and what it does not say. The passage falls into two natural divisions: the confrontation of Ananias (vv. 1–6) and the strikingly parallel confrontation with Sapphira (vv. 7–11). In both sections Peter, as the spokesman for the apostles, to whom the community funds were entrusted (4:35), did the confronting. It is striking that “equal time” is given to both the man and the woman. In both his Gospel and in Acts, Luke paired women with men, particularly in contexts of witness and discipleship. Here perhaps he was showing that along with discipleship goes responsibility; and this applies to all disciples, female as well as male. This would have been particularly noteworthy in the Jewish culture of the early Jerusalem church, where a woman’s religious status was largely tied up with her father or husband and depended on his faithful execution of the religious responsibilities. Ananias was the first to be confronted. Although the first two verses refer to Sapphira’s complicity and are in that sense introductory to both parts of the passage, the verbs are singular—he “sold a piece of property … he kept back part of the money.” There is a mild irony even in Ananias’s name, whose etymology is “God is gracious.” In light of the fearsome judgment that befell his own actions, the grace of God was surely his only hope.

Acts 5:1–6 ESV

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. 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.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. 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.

5:1 Ananias had evidently sold a piece of land, like Barnabas, and also like Barnabas had pledged the full proceeds to the community. This can be assumed from the use of a rare Greek verb (nosphizomai, v. 2) to describe his action in holding back part of the money. The verb means to pilfer, to purloin, to embezzle. One does not embezzle one’s own funds but those of another, in this instance those that rightfully belonged to the common Christian fund. Significantly, the same rare verb occurs in the Greek version of Josh 7:1–26, the story of Achan, who took from Jericho some of the booty “devoted” (i.e., set aside for God) for sacred use. Achan received a judgment of death from God himself, and Luke may well have seen a reminder of his fate in the similar divine judgment that came upon Ananias and Sapphira. They too had embezzled what was sacred, what belonged to the community in whom the Holy Spirit resided. One must assume either that the practice of the community was always to pledge the full proceeds of a sale or that Ananias and Sapphira had made such a pledge with regard to the sale of the field.

5:2–3 In any event, when Ananias placed the reduced portion at the apostles’ feet, Peter confronted him with his duplicity (v. 3). How Peter knew it was an incomplete sum the text does not say. The emphasis on the Spirit throughout the passage would indicate that it was inspired, prophetic insight on Peter’s part, just as the Spirit inspired Elisha to see his servant Gehazi’s duplicity in accepting money from Naaman the leper (2 Kgs 5:26). Peter knew that Ananias’s gesture was a lie. He had not given his pledge but only a part. “Why have you embezzled [“kept for yourself,” NIV] a portion of the sale price? Why have you allowed Satan to enter your heart?” One must remember that the community was “of one heart and mind” (4:32). This spiritual unity lay behind their not claiming their possessions as their own, their sharing everything they had. They were the community of the Holy Spirit, and in this community they placed all their trust, found their identity and their security. But this was not so with Ananias. His heart was divided. He had one foot in the community and the other still groping for a toehold on the worldly security of earthly possessions. To lie with regard to the sharing was to belie the unity of the community, to belie the Spirit that undergirded that unity. That is why Peter accused Ananias of lying to the Spirit. The Greek expression is even stronger than that—he “belied,” he “falsified” the Spirit. His action was in effect a denial, a falsification of the Spirit’s presence in the community. All this had happened because he had allowed the archenemy of the Spirit, Satan, to enter his heart. Satan “filled” Ananias’s heart just as he had Judas’s (cf. Luke 22:3). Like Judas, Ananias was motived by money (cf. Luke 22:5). But in filling the heart of one of its members, Satan had now entered for the first time into the young Christian community as well.

5:4 Peter reminded Ananias that he had been under no compulsion (v. 4). He did not have to sell his land. Even if he sold it, he still could have retained the proceeds. The act of dedicating the land to the community was strictly voluntary. Once pledged, however, it became a wholly different matter. It had been dedicated to the community. In lying about the proceeds, he had broken a sacred trust. Ultimately, he had lied to God. Not that he had not betrayed the community. Not that he had not lied to the Spirit. Rather, to betray the community is to lie to the Spirit that fills the community, and to falsify the Spirit of God is an affront to God himself.

5:5–6 When Ananias heard these words, “he fell down and died” (v. 5). How did he die? Was it from shock from overwhelming guilt and remorse upon the exposure of his sin? Was he struck down by God? The text does not say. The note about the fear that came upon all who heard about it, however, would indicate that they at least saw the hand of God in it all. The manner in which his funeral was handled would likewise indicate that a divine judgment was seen in the whole affair. The young men arose, wrapped up his body, and carried him outside the city to bury him. They wasted no time in ceremony, for they were back in three hours (vv. 7, 10). This was most unusual procedure. Burials were often fairly hasty in Palestine, but not that hasty, not, that is, except for death under unusual circumstances, such as suicides and criminals—and judgments from God.

Acts 5:7–11 ESV

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.” 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.

5:7 About three hours later Sapphira appeared on the scene. Just where the scene was we are not told. Luke told the story with the greatest economy. We are also not told who was present. Were all the apostles there? Only Peter is mentioned. How many of those upon whom fear came (v. 5) were actually present to hear the confrontation? We must assume that at least the young men were there with Peter and Ananias (v. 6). For all we are told, in this scene it may have been a matter of only Peter and Sapphira. Where had she been all this time? Why had she not been informed of her husband’s death? Why did she now appear; was she looking for her husband? Luke was not interested in such details. His only goal was to point to the grim outcome of her duplicity with her husband. She joined him in the conspiracy with the funds. She would join him in death.

5:8 Peter confronted her about the sale price, just as he had confronted Ananias. “Is this the price you … got for the land?” he asked her (v. 8). “Yes,” she replied. We are again left with questions. Did Peter mention the actual sale price or the reduced sum Ananias had brought? In giving an affirmative answer, was Sapphira conforming her guilt by continuing the lie? That is the most likely event, and most interpreters so take it. Yet if Peter had mentioned the actual full sale price, then her response would have been an admission of guilt, a confession.

5:9–10 In any event, with neither Ananias nor Sapphira did Peter pronounce a curse. His questioning of Sapphira left her the opportunity of repentance, and one can probably assume the same for Ananias. Peter’s role was to confront—not to judge. The judgment came from God. But Peter had to lay before her the consequences of her action. She had joined with her husband in “testing” the Spirit of the Lord. This time the expression was not of lying to the Spirit but of testing him, to see how far he would go in his tolerance. Not very far, was Peter’s answer: “The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” This was the first Sapphira had heard of her husband’s death, and she fell down immediately at Peter’s feet, dead. Peter’s words scarcely sound redemptive. He was fulfilling the prophetic role of the divine mouthpiece, pronouncing God’s judgment on her for her complicity with her husband. She may have died of shock; but if so, it was inevitable, for Peter already knew and informed her that her doom was sealed. One can scarcely miss the irony of the situation. Now she lay at Peter’s feet, in the place of her money. She had joined her husband in conspiracy. Now she would join him in the grave.

5:11 Sapphira’s story is bracketed by the same epitaph as that of her husband (cf. v. 5b): “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.” The repetition is not by chance: it is the whole point of the story.

The church is a holy body, the realm of the Spirit. By the power of this spiritual presence in its midst, the young community worked miracles, witnessed fearlessly, and was blessed with incredible growth. The Spirit was the power behind its unity, and its unity was the power behind its witness. But just as with God there is both justice and mercy, so with his Spirit there is also an underside to his blessing. There is his judgment. This Ananias and Sapphira experienced. The Spirit is not to be taken lightly. As the Spirit of God he must always be viewed with fear in the best sense of that word (phobos), reverent awe and respect. It might be noted that this is the first time the word “church” (ekklēsia) occurs in Acts, which denotes the people of God gathered as a religious community. Perhaps it is not by accident that it occurs in the context of this story. The church can only thrive as the people of God if it lives within the total trust of all its members.

Where there is that unity of trust, that oneness of heart and mind, the church flourishes in the power of the Spirit. Where there is distrust, its witness fails.

Acts 5:1–11 simply does not depict Ananias and Sapphira’s sin in terms of blaspheming the Spirit, attributing the work of the Spirit to Satan. Often it is said that the pair died of psychological fright. This can be neither proved nor disproved from the text, and it well may have been the case; but it does not alleviate the strong judgmental note of the text. Peter knew and told Sapphira beforehand that she was about to be carried feetfirst out the door. Luke’s emphasis on the fear of the people would likewise indicate that they saw divine judgment in the incident, not just a couple’s panic in being caught with the goods. When all is said and done, there is no “comfortable” solution to the passage. It is a unique story. There is nothing like it elsewhere in Acts, or for that matter in the New Testament. But nowhere in the story are Ananias and Sapphira condemned to eternal seperation. Their death did not necessarily involve their loss of salvation.

Still, the judgment that befell Ananias and Sapphira was severe, and one is all too aware that today’s churches would be much emptier if such standards were consistently applied. It is part and parcel of Luke’s ideal portrait of the early church in Acts. None of the standards fit the church of our experience—“one in heart and mind,” no one “claimed that any of his possessions was his own.” Luke depicted it as a unique period, the new people of God in Christ, filled with the Spirit, growing by leaps and bounds. There was no room for distrust, for duplicity, for any breach in fellowship. The same Spirit that gave the community its growth also maintained its purity. This seems to have been Luke’s point, for the Ananias and Sapphira story is bracketed by an emphasis on the unity of the community (4:32–35) and the power of the Spirit in its midst (5:12–16). One must not pass the story off, however, as a unique phenomenon of the primitive church or an adjunct to Luke’s ideal portrait of the church. If the incident makes us uncomfortable, it should. The desire for material security trapped Ananias and Sapphira. Not only was it their undoing, but it also threatened the church. Then, and now, the mark of any Christian fellowship is the relationship of its members to material matters. That is where its real heart and mind are revealed. This story reminds us of a further truth. The church, when it is the church, is a holy community, the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16f.). Disunity, duplicity, and hypocrisy always “undermine” the Spirit and hinder his work. If the church is to have genuine spiritual power in its life and witness, it must be an environment of the Spirit, devoted to maintaining its sanctity and purity.

Polhill, John B. 1992. Acts. Vol. 26. The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.