Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. 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.
This is a brutal passage of scripture because God kills a husband and wife who are attending church and generously giving money away, for lying to the church or for giving money for the wrong reasons so they could get spoken of in the same breath as Barnabas. Paul shows us that Jesus' command to the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give to the poor was not a universal command because Peter tells Ananias that they could have kept as much of the sale as they wanted. No, the issue was selling it then telling everyone that they gave it all sort of like Achan who buried some of the treasures of Jericho in his tent and said that he kept nothing.
The question is why? This doesn't happen today in the church. Pastors get up and preach about sexual purity while they are cheating on their spouses, and no lightning bolt hits them. Sunday school teachers teach on tithing while giving 5%. "Prophets" research crowds before conferences so they have secret knowledge to "miraculously reveal". People claim to be fasting for many days while secretly eating. All kinds of sins are going on in the church body and there is no obvious judgement on them. I think this may once again speak to the fact that the miraculous gifts and signs ceased temporarily, during the church age, when the apostles died off. Just like we aren't witnessing healers walking through hospitals and clearing them out nor people predicting the future with 100% accuracy, so we aren't seeing things like Paul says in Corinthians where some in the church were getting sick and dying for taking communion unworthily.
The death of Ananias and Saphyra showed to a questioning world that had to convert from the first covenant to the second covenant, the power of God and the validity of the message. It conveyed that no matter how good you appear to be on the outside, God judges the inside. He knows the sinfulness of our hearts so repent and turn from sin to trusting in Jesus. To say we're trusting in Jesus yet continuing in sin is unacceptable. John talks about this a lot in 1John and these deaths were warnings to the people to not be hypocrites but turn from sin and follow Jesus.
People often pray for a second Pentecost or write worship songs pleading for times of signs, wonders, and miracles to return. Are you really sure you want that? I'd kind of be scared to go to church with my impure heart. God's patience, grace and mercy is allowing an impure church and it's not His fault, it's ours. Jesus predicted the wheat and tares would grow together until the judgement and the church is evidence of that. Our job is not to clean the weeds out but to be the best wheat we can possibly be. Let's not play church but let's be a cleansed, non-hypocritical, obedient follower of Christ that won't have to shrink ashamedly in His presence but a pure bride when He returns. Acts 4:36,37, 5:1-10
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