Acts 5 Devotional
By Pastor Lawrence

Thus far in the book of Acts we have seen a vision and a foretaste of the ideal church in glory where everything seemed to be as it should be, but sadly this would not remain the norm. Matthew Henry points out in his commentary that chapter five “begins with the melancholy word ‘but’ which puts a stop to the pleasant and agreeable prospect of things which we had in the foregoing chapters; as every man, so every church, in its best state has its ‘but.’” In this case, Ananias and Sapphira are the ‘but’ in the story. Chapter four had ended on a high note with the great generosity of a man named Barnabas who had sold a field that belonged to him and laid the proceeds of the sale at the apostles’ feet to be used to help the needy within the church. Because of this very encouraging sacrifice along with his ongoing ministry of encouraging the saints, the apostles had given him the name Barnabas, which means, ‘son of encouragement.’

Then, in our text this morning, Ananias and Sapphira seem to be doing the same thing, at least according to outward appearances, for they too sold a plot of land and had laid money at the feet of the apostles. But there were a couple of differences between these two separate sacrifices. In the first instance, Barnabas had given all of the proceeds to the apostles, whereas in the latter, Ananias had given only part of the proceeds and yet had lied to the apostles in saying that all of it was given.

It’s interesting; the word that Luke uses in the Greek to signify the withholding of some of the proceeds is used only two other times in Scripture; once in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament and once again in the New Testament. First, it is used in Joshua ch.7 to describe Achan’s sin. If you remember, Achan had taken some of the things devoted to God and God’s anger burned against the camp because of this. He had stolen silver and gold, lied about it and then put the things of God with his own possessions, digging a whole under his tent in order to hide them. He had violated God’s covenant and so God commanded the Israelites to stone him and his family then afterwards to burn their bodies. The people then were also told to heap up a pile of rocks as a reminder to Israel of what had happened there and to warn future generations against falling into the same temptation.

Then the word is also used in the New Testament in Titus 2.10 in Paul’s directions concerning slaves. He tells Titus to counsel Christian slaves not to steal from their masters, not to divide their master’s money and hide some of it in a secret place. So, the first sin that Ananias commits is theft or embezzlement. But you might be wondering how he could be stealing the money if it was his in the first place. Apparently, he must have made a vow to God to give all the proceeds of the sale of his property to the church, probably having done so after hearing of Barnabas’ great gift to God. Then having dedicated his land unto the Lord, it was then considered God’s possession, thus to keep some of the profit for himself was to steal from God and from His church.

Of course, the plan seemed good to him at first just as most sin seems quite appealing prior to judgment. Who could possibly know how much the land was worth? After all, they didn’t have zillow.com back then. Surely, though, they must have known that God sees all things, but like the rest of us at times, they chose to forget that very important fact being blinded by their sin. But this account proves to us once again that God not only cares about what we do, but why we do it. Do we perform our good works out of love for God or out of love for self, seeking to be applauded by men rather than pleasing unto God? In many cases, we may never be caught in a lie by our fellow man, but God knows our every word before it rolls off our tongues. He knows every motivation, every secret design, and every evil purpose, and He will expose them to us sooner rather than later if we are walking the Spirit, but much later if we are not, perhaps not until the Day of Judgment. So let us be sober in our relationship with God and ask the Lord to examine our hearts afresh that we might not be deluded and deceived in the same manner as Ananias and Sapphira, that we might not crave riches and the applause of men more than the riches of heaven and the approval of God. For God knows our hearts much better than we do and he is determined to cleanse them from these dirty desires that we might be consecrated to his service and offer unto him a holy and acceptable sacrifice, which is true spiritual worship.