Untitled Sermon
1–2. The opening But contrasts Ananias and Sapphira with Barnabas. They sold a piece of land, but kept back part of the price which they had received for it before bringing the proceeds to the apostles for the common-good fund of the church; placing the money at the apostles’ feet means that it was given as a trust, not as a personal gift. The verb kept back is identical with that used to describe the action of Achan in holding on to some of the spoil from Jericho which was meant to be handed over to the house of the Lord or to be destroyed (Josh. 7:1). There are further similarities between the stories of the two men’s sins and their consequent punishments, but these are insufficient to show that one story was created on the pattern of the other; at most they show that Luke was conscious of a typological resemblance between them.
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.89 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.
Negative Example: Ananias and Sapphira (5:1–11)
This chilling account of the sudden deaths of Ananias (Hebrew, “the Lord is gracious”) and Sapphira (Aramaic, “beautiful”) makes us face the fact that God deals with sin, especially church members’ deceit and lack of integrity. If God acts to preserve the integrity of the community that the gospel produced, we can have increased confidence in the truthfulness of the message itself (Lk 1:4). That’s the good news for the inquirer. This narrative is bad news, though, for any who would take a casual approach to entering the kingdom of God.
A Man Who Was Good to His Family (5:1–6)* Living out their unity with the believers, Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold real estate (see 5:3), brought and placed money at the apostles’ feet. This action paralleled Barnabas’s (4:37), with one significant difference. In collusion with his wife, Ananias kept back part of the money for himself. Literally, he embezzled from the sale price. This is paralleled in the LXX report of Achan’s sin (Josh 7:1), in secular sources describing the pilfering of gold dedicated to the god Apollos (Athenaeus Deiporosophists 6.234) and in the keeping back of crops that had been declared common property in the Celtic tribe Vaccaei (Diodorus Siculus Library of History 5.34.3).
Peter exposes the fraud. He knows the truth, whether by hearsay, reading Ananias’s face or Spirit-empowered insight. By asking Ananias why Satan has filled his heart for the purpose of lying to the Holy Spirit and embezzlement, Peter exposes the spiritual battle that is raging (compare Lk 4:1–13). Satan now attacks Christ’s mission from within as he had done through Judas and Peter (Lk 22:3, 31). The “father of lies” (Jn 8:44) starts in the heart, the source of all decisions concerning possessions and their relation to God (Lk 12:34; 16:14–15; Acts 8:21–22; contrast 2:46; 4:32). Ananias shows not simply a lack of honesty in bringing only a part of the sale price but also a lack of integrity—bringing only a part while pretending to bring the whole (Stott 1990:109).
Peter now exposes Ananias’s full responsibility: he had full control over the property before it was sold, and over the sale price before he contributed any portion to the common fund (5:4). This statement can help us understand the arrangements of having all things in common (2:44; 4:32) and the practice of selling property and bringing the proceeds to the apostles as a contribution to a fund for the poor (4:34–37; compare 2:45), for it shows the voluntary, even periodic nature of the process. Peter again asks the piercing question “Why?” This sin, like all sin, is finally not against human beings but against God.
But sin blinds us to the true nature of the offense: that our sin is against God. Sin also blinds us so that we choose short-term gains in this life, heedless of the long-term loss in the next (Lk 9:24–25). For Ananias it was the possibility of being praised for his generosity while keeping a secure nest egg for his wife (Hebrew kṯûbâh, or dowry paid to a wife in the case of a unilateral divorce or at his death—see m. Ketubot; Derrett 1977:196).
As Ananias listens to this exposé (NIV’s when Ananias heard this does not do justice to the simultaneous action indicated by the present participle), suddenly he falls down and dies (exepsyxen, used primarily in accounts of death as a result of divine judgment—Acts 5:10; 12:23; Judg 4:21). God, the knower of all hearts, has assessed Ananias’s unrepentant heart and immediately judged him for his sin (contrast Acts 15:8).
Such a punishment, “death at the hands of heaven,” was a recognized penalty in Old Testament and Jewish law. The punishments for partaking of the priestly tithe while ritually unclean and the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu are the closest parallels (Lev 10:1–7; 22:9; m. Keritot; Derrett 1977:197). No wonder great fear comes upon the Jewish Christian bystanders (compare Acts 5:11; 19:17).
Such discipline certainly has its deterrent value. The hasty, unceremonious burial of Ananias shows the believers recognize that God’s judgment has fallen on one who by his embezzlement had violated the transparent unity of the Spirit-filled assembly (see Lev 10:6; Sěmaḥot 2:8). The young men (young in age, not office) cover his eyes and wrap his body in a shroud (synesteilan; the word systellontos, referring to a functionary related to burials, has been discovered on an inscription in a synagogue in Beth Shearim—see Safrai 1976:776). Without the traditional rituals of mourning, Ananias is taken outside the city and buried.
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.
“The first trace of a shade upon the bright form of the young Church. Probably among the new Christians a kind of holy rivalry had sprung up, every one eager to place his means at the disposal of the apostles” [OLSHAUSEN]. Thus might the new-born zeal of some outrun their abiding principle, while others might be tempted to seek credit for a liberality which was not in their character.
2. kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it—The coolness with which they planned the deception aggravated the guilt of this couple.
he sin of one man who had kept spoils for himself had once brought judgment on all Israel and the death of many, and only the death of the transgressor allowed Israel to move forward again (Josh 7). God took the corporate purity of his people, and the importance of sincerity in claims to total commitment, far more seriously than most Christians do today.
5:1–4. Ancient groups that required members to turn over their possessions usually had a waiting period during which one could take one’s property and leave (see the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pythagoreans). The early Christians act not from a rule but from love, but this passage treats the offense of lying about turning everything over to the community more seriously than others did. The Dead Sea Scrolls excluded such an offender from the communal meal for a year and reduced food rations by one-fourth; here God executes a death sentence. Both 2 Kings 5:20–27 and a Greek inscription from Epidauros show that most ancient people knew the danger of lying to God or one of his representatives.
1–2 Flowing straight on from the narrative about Barnabas (4:36–37), Ananias (Heb. ḥānanyāh(u), ‘Yahweh is gracious’) and Sapphira (Aram. šappîrā, ‘beautiful’) are introduced as two more disciples who sold a piece of property (epōlēsan ktēma). However, the expression with his wife’s full knowledge (syneiduiēs kai tēs gynaikos, ‘his wife also being aware of it’) highlights the complicity of husband and wife in a blatant act of rebellion against God. Here is one of several details in the story suggesting a parallel with the sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. The ‘original sin’ of the church is portrayed in terms of the misuse of money and possessions! Ananias and Sapphira disregarded the presence of God in the Christian community, the sacredness of that fellowship in God’s eyes, and the relational aspect of their sin. They failed to discern that a deliberate act of deceit against the church was a sin against the Lord of the church. Ananias kept back (enosphisato) or ‘misappropriated’ part of the money for himself (apo tēs timēs; cf. 4:34, tas timas [‘the money’]), but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Although they presented ‘only a part’ (meros ti, ‘a certain portion’; TNIV the rest) to the apostles, in view of the regular community practice (4:35, 37), they appeared to be dedicating all the proceeds to the church. This verb kept back may have been chosen by Luke to make a link with Joshua 7:1 (enosphisanto), where it describes the sin of Achan, who retained for private use property that had been ‘devoted to the Lord’. But the sin of Ananias was different, as Luke goes on to show. The land and its proceeds were his (v. 4) and he was not under any obligation to give it to the apostles. His error was to pretend that he had given everything when he had given only a part, thus making himself out to be more generous and self-sacrificing than he really was.
Ananias and Sapphira (1–11).—1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, 2. And kept hack part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part—pretending it to be the whole proceeds of the sale. We have here (as Olshausen says) ‘the first trace of a shade upon the pure, bright form of the young Church. Probably among the new Christians a kind of holy rivalry had sprung up, every one eager to place his means at the disposal of the apostles.’ Thus might the new-born zeal of some outrun their abiding principle, while others might be tempted to seek credit for a liberality which was not in their character. The coolness with which this couple planned the deception aggravated the guilt of it
