But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
They say, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Ananias and Sapphira were professing Christians in the earliest days of the faith. I do not know if they had heard or seen Jesus personally, but this is certainly early enough in the history of Christianity that they knew the Apostles, and couldn't have made the argument, so common among skeptics today, that they had made it up long after the fact.
Ananias and Sapphira had a possession.
The early believers were not impoverished, ignorant, illiterate people. At least not all of them. To claim that they couldn't read so there was no motivation for the apostles to write is ignorant. To claim that the apostles couldn't write, so they could not have recorded their observations about being with Christ, is just wrong.
Ananias and Sapphira sold a possession.
The Bible does not say what the possession was. I think we all assume it was land because the Bible says in the previous chapter that is what Barnabas sold. I want to comment on the economy. They had a possession - at least some of them did, and the economy was healthy enough that they could sell it, for sufficient to give, and even, in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, to give some of it and keep back a part of it. These were not ignorant, destitute people who had professed faith in Christ.
Ananias and Sapphira lied about the sale.
This is very early on in the Christian faith, and already, there were people involved in the local church whose heart and spirit were not pure. I don't want to speculate whether they were genuinely born again. God knows the truth about that. Just as it is true with every one of us, only God knows whether any other member of a local church is genuinely born again. I can know I have eternal life.[1] I cannot know that about anyone else. What I can say about them is, whatever their relationship with the Lord, it wasn't what it ought to have been. And it cost them.
My concern is for those whether saved or unsaved, I cannot say, God knows, whose relationship with the Lord is not what it should be. I can see that. And I can warn them that such a poor relationship with Christ will cost them, their families, and the church to which they belong. My plea is, as was Paul's, that men and women professing faith examine themselves[2] seriously and frequently, whether they are in the faith and whether their faith is what it ought to be.
#AnaniasAndSapphira #EarlyChurch #ChristianFaith #HeartCondition #ExamineYourself
Deceit in the Early Church: The Tragic Tale of Ananias and Sapphira
[1] 1 John 5:13 (KJV)
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
[2] 2 Corinthians 13:5 (KJV)
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
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