The weekend means there is just one reading in our quest to read through the New Testament in a year. We will continue our reading of the Book of Acts, reading chpt. 5:1-42. It’s a sober reading, and will make us think...that’s good. After you’ve read it, come back and we’ll look at it again.
It seemed as if nothing would ever go wrong. The wedding was beautiful, the sun shone brilliantly, and the air was filled with love and hope. There was enough of everything and there was happiness, joy, hope, and faith. How could anyone think it wouldn’t go on forever? Then, out of nowhere, a lie, a holding back, a broken trust, and from broken trust comes deception and lies...hypocrisy...appearing one thing on the outside and another within...Ugh! It might be a story for a movie, a novel, but it is also the story of the early church.
The church had been smoothly running along. It wasn’t as if there were no problems, but they were all “outside” the church - opposition from without. When Peter and John stood before the council they couldn’t be blamed for doing anything other than healing a man and preaching the truth about Jesus. Luke wrote at the end of chpt. 4, introducing us to a beautiful man, a new church leader...the first man who was not an Apostle - Barnabas. He described him as one “who sold a field he owned, and brought the money and put it at the Apostle’s feet - i.e., he gave it completely as a gift to the Apostles for them to do what they felt was most needed. What Pastor wouldn’t want a church full of Barnabas’? The next words Luke wrote...forget the chapter division...was “But...” (ESV), or “Now” (NIV), and he begins to tell about a couple who did what Barnabas did in selling some land, but didn’t do what Barnabas did in giving it completely the Apostles. The sobering details are there in those first 11 verses. The man, Ananias, comes to the Apostles, and Peter confronts him - “why did you lie? It was yours to do as you please with...and even after you sold it, it was your money to do with what you wanted to...why did you lie?” Then, Luke writes, “he fell over dead!”
I have to admit, it is a story that has often troubled me. First, I look at myself and realize that there have been times I’ve been a hypocrite...saying, looking, doing something on the outside while inside of me is something very different. Secondly, I relate to Isaiah in Isaiah 6, when he sees the Lord and says, “I am an unclean man and I dwell in the midst of an unclean people”, i.e., I fellowship, live, play with people who have at times not been truthful. When trust breaks down, everyone gets hurt.
Nothing is worse than hypocrisy. It is a lie hidden in plain sight. It is dangerous and ruins relationships. Can it be overcome? Yes through real confession and repentance...a godly sorrow that can reset and yet offer a new way forward.
That is not what happened in Acts 5. First Ananias lied and died...then his wife, not knowing what happened to him also lied and died. It is a sobering story, and one that changes the story of the early church from courageous faith, wonders, common faith, fellowship and joy to the reality that no one who entered into the early church lost their sin nature. Looking at Ananias and Sapphira is sober - they premeditatively determined to lie about the gift when they didn’t have to - it was there’s to give voluntarily, as much as they wanted to. What seems to be the primary issue then is Pride... their pride. They wanted to look good, be something, stand out...like Barnabas, and the Holy Spirit revealed to Peter and the Apostles what was going on.
It’s an interesting story for this reason also - one like it never appears in the story of the early church again. It mirrors the Old Testament story of the High Priest’s duties, and what happened to Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, who took it upon themselves to ignore the directions God had given Moses and Aaron and died in the Holy place for their foolish actions. That caused a certain sobering fear of the Lord. So did this account of Ananias and Sapphira in the early church. No need to dwell on it, but don’t forget it either. I believe authenticity is a good virtue. I don’t mind it when someone shares their honest struggles to be good...it’s better than the opposite, hiding the truth.
The story moves on - vs 11, “great fear seized the church...” you think? Yes, the joy, happiness, victorious prayers were replaced for a minute by sober realities. We’re not playing around here. Yet God is on the move. While people were hesitant to join the church - and who wouldn’t be - miracles began to happen in front of everyone’s eyes. Luke writes that the reputation of the early church grew again, and people even took their sick friends and relatives into the street in hopes that if one of the Apostles, such as Peter walked by, their shadow crossing over a body of a sick one would bring healing! Luke does not say that this occurred, but it demonstrates the extent of the people’s wonder and amazement of what they saw happening in the early church.
It was also the “straw that broke the camels back” for the religious rulers of the Sanhedrin. Driven by jealousy they arrested the Apostles and were prepared to put them on public trial for insurrection...perhaps looking to do to them as they had done to Jesus months before. You have to love the story and imagine the scene.
(Vss 18 - 21) “...they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said,
‘Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.’ And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.”
In just a few sentences wonder and amazement returns. The prison was meant to hold them overnight before a public trial would be convened. An Angel of the Lord (I love it) “opens the prison doors and brought them out”! Peter, James, John, Andrew...the Apostles are in the various prison cells. What were they doing? Praying? Sleeping? Talking? We don’t know. What we do know is that at some time during the night they seek an Angel and without a key, or a turning of the lock, the doors open! It is the first of several times in the book of Acts that Angels get involved. Hebrews 1:14 reminds us that “Angels are ministering Spirits sent by God for his elect”. As the doors open, the instructions are also clear - “go back to the Temple and keep proclaiming”. It’s an important lesson to learn. God’s authority is greater than the authority of human rulers. The ruling Jewish leaders wanted them to “stop speaking about ‘that man’”. If the Apostles had decided to run for their lives, leave town, be safe and get out of there, the rulers would have won. But God wanted them to go back...stay and teach.
In the morning two things occur at the same time. The Apostles go back to the Temple and resume their teaching and praying in public, and the rulers call for the officers to get the prisoners - only to discover that the guards are still there, the doors are locked, but, there are no prisoners! The cells are empty. The captain of the guards and the rulers of the Priests are all dumbfounded... “what is going on here”? What is going on becomes very clear when someone comes to them to tell them that the Apostles - “the men you put in jail” - are standing in the Temple preaching again. The captain of the guard goes to the Temple and quietly, even politely, requests their company to appear before the Sanhedrin. They comply.
The following narrative is one of more threats, even beatings occur, and a desire on some of the ruler’s parts to put the Apostles to death. Why? Because the early church and its leaders were threatening the religious institutional control of the ruling class of leaders. Peter stands in front of them and with the other Apostles makes it clear: “We must obey God rather than men.” It is a principle that has been applied countless of times in the history of the Church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer quietly waged a campaign of acting against everything the Nazi government wanted Germans to do. He, along with many other believers, acted to preserve lives by secretly getting Jews out of Germany rather than let the Nazis put them in prison camps. It cost him his life...so also, Corrie ten Boom’s family...so also, countless hundreds of others. It’s a principle of faith based on this - we must obey the ruling authorities in all things (Romans 13) except when the orders of the rulers directly contradict the obedience to God that we are called to be loyal to. It’s not an easy thing to figure out - and at some times Christians have foolishly thought they were doing this very thing when all they were doing was exercising their political choices. Yet, there are Christians all around the world, and over every century of Church history, that have had to do this very command - “obey God rather than man”.
The ruling council wanted to kill the Apostles, but cooler heads prevailed. A Pharisee named Gamaliel (remember that name) stands up to advise them in a simple, but profound way: “if this is of God, you will not be successful in stopping them, and if this is not of God and is only their human efforts, it will fail.” It was good advice, and the leaders took it, with one caveat, they beat the Apostles with whips to make sure they got the point that speaking about Jesus was only going to get them into further trouble. They didn’t get the point - they left “rejoicing”. They knew that what they were doing was raising the ire of the ruling priests, but nonetheless, they went right back to the Temple and resumed their teaching, proclaiming Jesus as Savior and Lord.
What do we make of all of this? The church we live in is tame, harmless, compared to this early church. The early church had no state protection, no money or power, no buildings, no population of citizens to defend their right to exist; yet they began to turn the world upside-down. We must not romanticize it all...the flaws were there to be seen. There was human sin mixed in with courageous faith. The differences between today and then might be simply this - the power of the Holy Spirit at work in and through them. We need that more today than ever.
Peace
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