After the Sanhedrin couldn’t do anything to Peter and John because the people loved them, Peter and John returned to their friends – which I take to be the 120 disciples of Jesus. They prayed, the Holy Spirit surged again, and they all “began speaking God’s message with courageous confidence.” (Acts 4:31) Next, we get a repeat of something we heard earlier, but it’s going to move us into an uncomfortable story.

4:32 During those days, the entire community of believers was deeply united in heart and soul to such an extent that they stopped claiming private ownership of their possessions. Instead, they held everything in common. The apostles with great power gave their eyewitness reports of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Everyone was surrounded by an extraordinary grace. Not a single person in the community was in need because those who had been affluent sold their houses or lands and brought the proceeds to the emissaries of the Lord. They then distributed the funds to individuals according to their needs.
One fellow, a Cyprian Levite named Joseph, earned a nickname because of his generosity in selling a field and bringing the money to the apostles in this way. From that time on, they called him Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.”
5:1One man whose name was Ananias[1], with his wife, whose name was Sapphira, had sold his field. And he took some of its price and concealed it while his wife was aware of it, and he brought some of the money and placed it before the Apostles' feet.
And Peter said to Ananias, "Why has Satan filled[2] your heart[3] to lie to the Spirit of Holiness[4] and to hide some money of the proceeds of the field? Was it not yours until it was sold? And after it was sold, again you had power over its proceeds. Why have you conceived in your heart to do this thing? You have not cheated men but God."
And when Ananias heard these words, he dropped dead and breathed his last.[5] And great fear came upon all those who heard. And young men among them arose and gathered him up, and they took him out and buried him.
And after three hours had passed, his wife also entered, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, "Tell me if for these proceeds you sold the field." But she said, "Yes, for these proceeds."
Peter said to her, "Because you have conspired to tempt the Spirit of the Lord Jehovah, behold the feet of those who buried your husband are at the door and they will take you out." And at that moment she fell before their feet and breathed her last, and those young men came in and found her dead.[6]
And they took her up and brought her out and buried her beside her husband. And there was great fear (phobos) upon the entire church among all those who heard.[7] And there were occurring by the hands of the Apostles signs and many mighty acts among the people and they were all assembled together at the porch of Solomon.
And none of the other people dared to join them, but the people were magnifying/exalting them.[8] And those who were believing in Jehovah were added all the more, multitudes of men and women, so that they were bringing the sick out into the streets lying in litters, that when Peter would come, at least his shadow might overshadow them.[9]
And many were coming to them from the other cities which were around Jerusalem, as they were bringing the sick and those who had evil spirits, and they were all being healed.

I have a lot of questions about this event.

It reads like Ananias and Sapphira make one mistake, and they are done. One and done. It feels like there must be more to it than that.
Why had no one told Sapphira what happened? Would she not have repented in front of Peter instead of continuing the lie?
Peter says that Satan filled Ananias’ heart and Ananias conceived to do this in his heart. Is it both? Did Ananias plant and Satan water?
Peter would have been raised to practice the following in the face of an accusation: two or three witnesses had to know of the impending sin, warn of the impending sin and its consequences, and then see the sin occur. Matthew 18 gives a whole process that wasn’t followed. Why not?
Jesus rattled people, but He never cursed someone to die on the spot. Forgive 70x7, overcome evil with good, bless your enemy and pray for them that despitefully use you. I don't see "curse them to die or perish on the spot" on that list in Matthew 5:38-48.[10] What has changed?
The burial does not follow Jewish protocol. There is no family involvement and no ritual.[11]
“Other people” didn’t dare join them after this. Is it other disciples from the 120 (Acts 1:15)? Religious leaders? Gentiles? Is this good or bad?
Was the fear (phobos – wide range of meaning) a good thing?
Peter had said after healing the lame man, “Why are you staring at my friend and me as though we did this miracle through our own power or made this fellow walk by our own holiness? 13 We didn’t do this—God did!” (Acts 3) Now, the people are magnifying/exalting them. There seems to be no deflection of glory here. Is that a bad sign?

Let’s walk through three main ways followers of Jesus have interpreted this passage, and then land on some things that are clear in spite of uncertainty.

OPTION #1

This is divine judgment, pure and simple. This is an inaugural event in the early church: it’s not going to be the norm (just like tongues of fire aren’t the norm), but it establishes how seriously God takes hypocrisy and deceit.[12] The "great fear" that follows sounds ominous in my ears, but it promoted holiness and growth. The church continued to draw Jewish converts, so this act of God was not off-putting to them. Perhaps they just hyper-linked to God’s demands for holiness in the OT. Same God, new covenant.

Things that make me say hmmm…

The text does not explicitly state that God killed them.
Peter’s response clashes with Jesus' mercy for sinners, culminating in a prayer for forgiveness for his murderers. Is killing God worse than lying to Him?
If this established that God demanded holiness, it doesn’t seem to have worked any better than Old Testament punishments stopped God’s people from straying.[13] Just read the NT letters and study church history.
It did actually deter at least some people from joining. There was respect but a reluctance to join. If the death penalty instantly applied to sin, I could see how that would be off-putting.
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (1 John 4:18) What do we do with that?

OPTION #2

Maybe Satan is the one who took their lives. Peter asked Sapphira, literally, "Why did the two of you agree to pressure the Spirit?" It carries the idea of pushing away the protective presence of God.[14]Paul will later instruct the church to “hand [a] man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 5).[15] Perhaps Ananias and Saphira were handed over to Satan. Their flesh was destroyed, but their spirits were saved (the text doesn’t say they were damned for what they did, just punished).[16]

HMMMMM….

The text doesn’t say that Satan killed them, just that Satan had “entered in” in the same way Satan entered into Judas in Luke 22:3. At one point Jesus had said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my way, because you are not thinking the thoughts of God but those of men.” (Matthew 16:23) And then Satan didn’t kill Peter. So what is different here?

This view seems to give an uncomfortable amount of power to Satan and suggests that, depending on what our sin is, Satan can just take us, even though God denied Satan that kind of power in the story of Job.

OPTION #3

What if this is a descriptive story but not a prescriptive one? In other words, it shows what happened,but not necessarily what should have happened. Peter confronts publicly without private warning. There is no attempt to rebuke Satan; no prayer; no attempt to lead in repentance and restoration.

Peter, the Son of Thunder, has a thunderous history: cutting off the ear of a servant in his Zealotry to protect Jesus; denying Jesus with oaths in a volatile moment. He was also part of a group that asked Jesus to rain down fire on a Samaritan town (Luke 9) before Jesus countered by sending them there as missionaries.

“Did Peter show them the same grace he himself received when he betrayed the Lord three times in one night? Did Peter extend God's grace to them to NOT hold this sin to their account, as Jesus did, as the martyr Stephen did, or did he even try to minister repentance to them, to counsel them, to pray for them, to intercede for them, to lay hands on them to be forgiven and healed, or any of the other things Scripture and later Church practice advised?

What about this passage? "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." (Galatians 6:1) Why, in Jesus' name, was the space to repent NOT offered to Ananias and Sapphira in this situation by Peter?”[17]

That seems like a really good question.

It also seems to have elevated Peter in an unhealthy way. The rest of the 120 disciples of Jesus either don’t feel worthy of hanging with them or don’t want to; the people start thinking that just the shadow of Peter might heal them. This doesn’t seem healthy.

“If we, as part of a young and inexperienced church body, saw a revered leader such as Peter appear to instill such fear that people dropped dead, literally scared and condemned to death, then we too might start to idolize his ‘shadow…’ It can be argued that the ‘great fear’ that came on the church in the wake of this event, and the subsequent healing of the sick from Peter's cast shadow, came more from men wrongly, excessively and fearfully elevating Peter rather than through the exercising of pure faith in Christ.”[18]

HHHHMMMMM….

Even if it is descriptive rather than prescriptive, Luke narrates without critiquing Peter and not clearly stating something like, “Yep, he overstepped his authority.” And the positive church growth that continued from within the Jewish community afterward must be considered. Whatever involvement Peter had was interpreted by the Jewish people in such a way that it grew the church.

* * * * *

So what do we do with this story? Maybe this is settled for you and I should say, “What do I do with this story?” I am still wrestling with this story. It is just so jarringly different from its textual and historical context.

What if this story is meant to unsettle us? What if it’s meant to resist a neat, packaged explanation? Perhaps we are meant to wrestle with the text and not let go until we find the blessing in it (#jacob)

My main area of wrestling is over the question of what God is like. Clearly, God is not a God to be managed or manipulated. The Spirit of God is holy and weighty. Conspiring to sin is playing with the fire of God. And yet, the same God who warned us that sin brings death is the God whose cruciform love brings holiness and mercy together in love. This God forgives, restores, and offers new life to even those who killed him and betrayed him.

I wonder if this kind of account invites us to hold two things at once: “The soul that sins will die!” (Ezekiel 18) and, "The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him" (Daniel 9:9). This invites us to explore God’s holy and merciful love more deeply.

If it’s just about holiness that demands an account from the sinner, how, then, is Peter still standing? Why am I still standing? Why are you?

That’s the wrestling part, at least for me.

Other parts are more clear. If we are invited to wrestle, we are also invited to participate in the lifestyle of the Kingdom: radically generous, full of integrity and truth, speaking God’s message with “courageous confidence.” When the church lives like that, there is “extraordinary grace” for us all. When deceit and corruption creep in, the Kingdom suffers.

This story reminds us to be the kind of people who take personal integrity seriously, recognizing the moldy nature of sin: it starts in one spot, but it never stays there. There is always a ripple effect. We must take seriously our commitment to following Jesus for the sake of all of us.

So we are invited to wrestle, to join the mission, and to live with holy integrity. Ananias and Saphira appear to have wanted the reputation of virtue without the cost of virtue.

Perhaps this is a good time for introspection. What are reputations we want without the cost of obedience? What are the crowns we want without the cross of presenting our lives as a living sacrifice? National headlines have too often revealed the lack of integrity in many of those who claim to follow Jesus.

They want the reputation of generosity without the cost of giving in ways they feel.
They want the reputation of defending traditional marriage while hiding their own secret affairs.
They want the reputation of honoring the Ten Commandments while breaking them in their own lives.
They want the reputation of being guardians of modesty and purity while going places and doing things that are anything but modest and pure.
They want the reputation of upholding family values while neglecting or mistreating their own family behind closed doors.
They want the reputation of loving the poor and powerless while not contributing in any meaningful way to their care.
They want the reputation of standing for truth while letting gossip and slander pass far too easily through their lips.
They want the applause of righteousness without the refining fire of holiness.

I said “they” to make it more objective. Could it also be “we”? Can you find yourseIf on that list? Are you thinking of something else? If this leaves us unsettled, maybe that’s exactly where we need to be. Unsettled hearts are being called to repent. The Holy Spirit is doing some work.

I would like us to close today by spending some time in surrender and repentance.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:23-24)

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[1] The import of his name, חנניה chananiyah, the grace or mercy of the Lord, agrees very ill with his conduct. (Adam Clarke)

[2] I wonder if this is a contrast to Peter having just been filled with the Spirit?

[3] As was said of Judas (John 13:2; John 13:27).

[4] “Likely this means by lying against Him who dwelt in the Apostles whom he was seeking to deceive.” (Ellicott’s Commentary For English Readers

[5] The LXX uses ekpsychō in a few spots: Judith 16:17: the ungodly “shall weep and breathe their last in pain forever.” 4 Maccabees 15:24: a martyr “breathed his last.” 3 Maccabees 5:42: persecuted Jews “breathed their last.” In these contexts, it’s usually about violent, dramatic, or martyr-deaths—not “ordinary passing in bed.” So already in Jewish-Greek literature, the word can have a sense of dramatic expiration.

[6] Annanias and Sapphira may be hyperlinking to Abram in Gen 14 refusing to 'hold back for himself any portion of the proceeds'. Also, Achan in Joshua 7 took that which was harem – set apart for God – and used if for himself. It was not a good idea.

[7] “The question of the salvation of Ananias and Sapphira has not been a little agitated; and most seem inclined to hope that, though their sin was punished by this awful display of the Divine judgment, mercy was extended to their souls. For my own part, I think their sin was what the apostle, 1 John 5:16, calls a sin unto death; a sin which must be punished with temporal death, or the death of the body, while mercy was extended to the soul.” (Adam Clarke)

[8] This feels different than Peter’s first miracle, in which he said, “You thought we did this, but it was Jesus.”

[9] “It does not appear…that any person was healed in this way. The sacred penman simply relates the impression made on the people's minds; and how they acted in consequence of this impression.” (Adam Clarke)

[10] God vs Evil, by Richard Murray

[11] Typically, the body was first prepared for burial [the body was stripped, bathed, anointed with oils and certain burial spices, and then the body was wrapped in cloths before burial #jesusburial] The burial procession started at the home of the deceased, surrounded by family members.

[12] Onlookers may have thought of Nadab/Abihu in Leviticus 10 or Achan in Joshua 7.

[13] Later, Peter will tell Simon Magnus, who attempted to buy the Holy Spirit, “Your money perish with you.” Simon said, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.” There is no record that he or his money perished. I would think trying to buy the Holy Spirit has to rank up there pretty high in “Things Not To Do To The Holy Spirit,” and yet Simon lived. Hmmm.

[14] God at times judges by giving people over to their sins (Romans 1:24-26).

[15] Jesus had told his disciples that the “thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” (John 10) The writer of Hebrews claims that even though God has freed us from the fear of death having the final word, Satan “holds the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14)

[16] There is a psychological/spiritual view that has to do with Ananias and Sapphira being so scared they died. “I have witnessed this very thing in Africa where many people deeply believe in witchcraft. Many people there die a premature death because they have been convinced to believed that a witch doctor has put a curse on them. Many times even the medical profession will confirm that there is not a medical reason for their death.” (https://arthurmeintjes.com/what-about-ananias-and-sapphira/)

[17] God vs Evil, by Richard Murray

[18] God vs Evil, by Richard Murray