Acts #6: No duplicity in the Church. Acts 4:32-5:11 (Acts 4); Patrice Berger

sermon Acts 5 : Patrice Berger, 2022_11_02, AB Lausanne church

title : Acts #6: No duplicity in the Church. Acts 4:32-5:11 (Acts 4); Patrice Berger

See sidebar for text of acts 4 and 5

This type of passage has made many people and believers dream of reliving this community aspect, more in the mode of enjoying it than contributing to it!

In part, that’s not wrong, there’s something beautiful about what’s going on here.

There are not many precedents and I don’t know if there are many examples in the history of humanity where this happened spontaneously.

Inspiration

The driving force was not politics, but Christ.

Relief to Needy Brothers

This results in a concrete love for the needs of brothers and sisters in destitution.

Voluntary approach: note that the sales process seems to be voluntary and not forced (the rest of the text will corroborate this idea, chapter 5, verse 4)

Much more difficult situation

But the reality of this mutual aid is a little more inspired by the urgency of the situation

Setting up a community ideal for believers causes an extraordinary increase

We saw it previously, the number of disciples, which the Bible makes us echo at the beginning of the Acts, amounts in any case to 5000 men, without counting the women and the children (way of counting at the time) and those that are added daily.

It’s the equivalent of a beautiful city already!

Rejection and Denial of Disciples

Know also, when a person turned to Christ, he was generally excluded from his family, fired, and disinherited, it was considered a betrayal!

Drama for widows

The problem was more complicated for widows and their children who had only the support of their family (see Ruth, right of redemption) and who, believing, found themselves at the door without resources (no social assistance or unemployment insurance at the time: you work, you live, if you don’t work you have nothing, very often the salary is daily and not monthly), this dramatic side for widows often emerges in the Acts and in the epistles, because deprived of help from their families, there was absolutely nothing for them!

Situation still relevant

Total rejection: this attitude is not exclusive to the ancient period because many of our brothers and sisters in Christ still live in the same way, in countries where religion is tied to culture, status, and family honor. In the West, we live “in a bubble”!!!

A large number of people in precariousness

So a large number of people found themselves overnight in precariousness, and this is how spontaneous social assistance was created.

Social Assistance Funding

How to finance this aid? Some voluntarily sold goods (land houses) and gave money to the apostles so that they could redistribute it to those who needed it.

Work taking

We will see later that this work becomes so important that a solution must be found to relieve the apostles of this service “at the tables”.

“Table service”

It is not the service of the dishes for the meal but it is like the tables of the money changers in the temple. These tables were therefore used for the distribution of money for social assistance.

Continuation of the text

The text continues with two different attitudes regarding the sale of goods put to good use for needy believers: on one hand Barnabas, on the other, Ananias and Sapphira.

Proceedings- Chapter 4

36 Joseph – whom the apostles called Barnabas, which means

“Son of encouragement”

a Levite from Cyprus,

37 sold a field he owned,

brought the money and laid it at the feet of the apostles.

Acts – Chapter 5 (see sidebar)

Two different attitudes

On the one hand, Barnabas does things with simplicity and transparency,
On the other hand, Ananias and Sapphira obviously make believe that they are offering wholesale when it is only a part.

Concealment problem

The subject is under no obligation to give all or part of it, it was free. But to make believe that they gave everything (like Barnabas), whereas it was only partial and that it was deliberate to make believe it because Ananias and Sapphira agreed to be untruthful.

Lie to men and to the Holy Spirit

It was a lie, not only to the apostles and the Church but to the Holy Spirit who inspires transparency, whereas here Ananias and Sapphira yielded to the dissimulation suggested by Satan.

How to get out of it?

This passage underlines the importance of not only being sensitive to the suggestions of the Holy Spirit and of living them with simplicity and transparency, in private as well as in public.

And also, that concealment and human display when it is not so and religiosity are contrary to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and that it is a lie in the face of the Holy Spirit, before God and also that it is a lie in the face of the simple transparency that the Holy Spirit inspires in the believer.

Principle1

Concealment, display – when it is not true – is to be banished in the people of God and also to be banished in the Church.

God endorses true relationships and actions that come from a heart inspired by the Spirit of Christ.

Does God always strike down the same way?

The question posed by this text is: each time that we have used dissimulation in the face of what the Spirit suggested to us, in the face of the leaders of the Church, in the face of the Church, have we been struck down death instantly?

It does not seem like it has been so.

We do not see more cause and effect of this type in the epistles.

There is something special

It seems that we have here something particular in connection with the unique side of the story that unfolds here in the book of Acts for the Church and not something that is a norm.

In particular, this drama with Ananias and Sapphira as well as the community situation in which the Church found itself are particular to the beginning of the Church in its inaugural phase when the gospel progresses in the world of the time.

So?

But what does such a significant event mean?

Have there been other precedents in the history of God’s people?

Yes, in any case once, in connection with all the people of God (we can also notice a personal case: Gehazi and the presents of Naaman the Syrian refused by Elisha, another dissimulation sanctioned by God, to be meditated on) and that will help to understand what God wants to tell us here.

Book of Joshua

It’s in the book of Joshua: God’s people—the Hebrews, under God’s leadership through Joshua—are entering the fine land that God has destined for them.

All consecrated to the Lord

It’s time for conquests

At the first, that of Jericho, all the metal treasure and precious metals recovered were for the Eternal One (Joshua 6/19 ), nothing for the people (certainly an offering for God, which brings the idea of first fruits for the Eternal One)

Concealment of part of the treasure

But one of the soldiers of Israel kept and concealed for himself

A Hugo Boos suit
CHF 10,000 in coins
and a gold bar

I transposed but you can read the exact booty in Joshua chapter 7.

Consequences for all the people

What is notorious in his gesture is that it had harmful and disastrous consequences for all the people who are beaten into flat-seam in the next battle.

The culprit exposed

The people question the Eternal One: Achan, this soldier, is unmasked, and he and all his family die.

Stolen and lied to the Lord

The Lord points out that he stole and lied, Joshua 7:11 stole and lied, and they hid the treasures within their belongings.

Concordance between the two stories

These two tragic events speak to us of a concealment which apparently is only in the “eyes of others”, of those around us, but which turns out to be a concealment in the eyes of the people of God (the Hebrews and the disciples) and even more a concealment in the sight of God (the Eternal One and the Holy Spirit).

Concealment unhidden for God

Apparent concealment because it is not so. God sees very clearly what has been done.

Condemnation of the Lord

God severely condemns this dissimulation in the eyes of men, this lie against Him, at these two important moments in the history of his people, namely that His people are entering a new stage.

A new stage for the Hebrews

In the Hebrews’ case, they were returning to the promised land. And God clearly shows that we do not consider Him to be just any divinity.

But He is God, real, personified and we do not treat him as utilitarian to have power, and victory, and then we manage our little affairs when the right opportunity arises.

New milestone for followers of Christ

Likewise, in the book of Acts, the people of God, the disciples redeemed by Christ, enter this new stage which is the Church.

The Church is not a religious opportunity like other beliefs but it is led by Christ, real, living, and His Spirit inspires each of the disciples.

The Church is not confined to a cultural, traditional, and friendly bond, then I manage my moral affairs of life orientation as I see fit or according to the opportunities behind the backs of other disciples.

The Church is the body of Christ, a unity bound together by the Holy Spirit who inspires each one. It is not an agglomeration of individualists who meet from time to time out of interest.

God is to be taken seriously

God with the event of Ananias and Sapphira shows that we do not lie to Him, especially when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, inspires a virtuous gesture, and the lie can divert it from its meaning, that this attitude, in His people, in the Church of his disciples, resembles a rotten apple which could contaminate others by imitation.

This is why He withdraws it immediately, from the beginning of the church, to show the example not to be followed.

Being in Christ is different

The idea that the Church of the Disciples of Christ is a religion of a different color and that I go on with my life without changing anything, regardless of what the Holy Spirit shows me is not even in the realm of the possible.

Synthesis

In His grace, if God does not strike with instant death all his disciples who lie to Him and disregard the suggestions of the Spirit if God does not strike with instant death all His disciples who use concealment towards the Church and who lie to their leaders, he clearly invites us to live at every moment of our life, in the presence of other believers or not, in the light, that is to say in transparency with God and our neighbors and to banish concealment so that it does not even come within the realm of the possible. He also invites us not to consider faith in Christ as a religion better than the others but to a relationship found with God through Christ.

Luminous

A true, transparent relationship, without shadows and without gestures that fear the light of day.

A constant relationship regardless of being public or private.

Let us act in the same way, echoing the promptings of the Spirit, in private and in public, between brothers and sisters in Christ and with those around us.

The religious ones of Jesus’s time were the kings of public display and private robbery, let’s not be one or the other!

Let us act with simplicity as the Spirit of Christ inspires us to be, shining wherever we are and in the presence of people.

What do I learn?

God the Father

He knows everything, never the slightest detail will be hidden from him, He likes things to be clear.

He condemns and sanctions lying and dissimulation.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is God: verses 4 and 9.

We can only lie to Him by knowingly doing the opposite of what He suggests, especially when hiding the truth from our brothers and sisters.

What am I learning about myself, as a human?

We can have a problem with money (idol, love, or to guarantee something), if the domain of money is not handed over simply to Christ, Satan only has to give a “flick” for us to switch.

We can have a problem with transparency and taking refuge in dissimulation rhymes with ease… yet it is much easier to live completely in full light!

What is the verse not to miss?

Acts 5:3: “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart so that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and kept part of the price of the field?

Bible Passages

Acts 4 / ASV Bible

1. And as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them,
2. being sore troubled because they taught the people, and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
3. And they laid hands on them, and put them in ward unto the morrow: for it was now eventide.
4. But many of them that heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.
5. And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem;
6. and Annas the high priest [was there], and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest.
7. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, By what power, or in what name, have ye done this?
8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders,
9. if we this day are examined concerning a good deed done to an impotent man, by what means this man is made whole;
10. be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, [even] in him doth this man stand here before you whole.
11. He is the stone which was set at nought of you the builders, which was made the head of the corner.
12. And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved.
13. Now when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John, and had perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
14. And seeing the man that was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
15. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,
16. saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been wrought through them, is manifest to all that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it.
17. But that it spread no further among the people, let us threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.
18. And they called them, and charged them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
19. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye:
20. for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard.
21. And they, when they had further threatened them, let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people; for all men glorified God for that which was done.
22. For the man was more than forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was wrought.
23. And being let go, they came to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said unto them.
24. And they, when they heard it, lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, O Lord, thou that didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is:
25. who by the Holy Spirit, [by] the mouth of our father David thy servant, didst say, Why did the Gentiles rage, And the peoples imagine vain things?
26. The kings of the earth set themselves in array, And the rulers were gathered together, Against the Lord, and against his Anointed:
27. for of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together,
28. to do whatsoever thy hand and thy council foreordained to come to pass.
29. And now, Lord, look upon their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness,
30. while thy stretchest forth thy hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of thy holy Servant Jesus.
31. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
32. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul: and not one [of them] said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
33. And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
34. For neither was there among them any that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
35. and laid them at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need.
36. And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, Son of exhortation), a Levite, a man of Cyprus by race,
37. having a field, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

Acts 5 / ASV Bible

1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
2. and kept back [part] of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
3. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back [part] of the price of the land?
4. While it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power? How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart? thou has not lied unto men, but unto God.
5. And Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost: and great fear came upon all that heard it.
6. And the young men arose and wrapped him round, and they carried him out and buried him.
7. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
8. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much. And she said, Yea, for so much.
9. But Peter [said] unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to try the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them that have buried thy husband are at the door, and they shall carry thee out.
10. And she fell down immediately at his feet, and gave up the ghost: and the young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her by her husband.
11. And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all that heard these things.
12. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch.
13. But of the rest durst no man join himself to them: howbeit the people magnified them;
14. and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of them and women;
15. insomuch that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that, as Peter came by, at the least his shadow might overshadow some one of them.
16. And there also came together the multitudes from the cities round about Jerusalem, bring sick folk, and them that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.
17. But the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy,
18. and laid hands on the apostles, and put them in public ward.
19. But an angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them out, and said,
20. Go ye, and stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this Life.
21. And when they heard [this], they entered into the temple about daybreak, and taught. But the high priest came, and they that were with him, and called the council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison-house to have them brought.
22. But the officers that came found them not in the prison; and they returned, and told,
23. saying, The prison-house we found shut in all safety, and the keepers standing at the doors: but when we had opened, we found no man within.
24. Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were much perplexed concerning them whereunto this would grow.
25. And there came one and told them, Behold, the men whom ye put in the prison are in the temple standing and teaching the people.
26. Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them, [but] without violence; for they feared the people, lest they should be stoned.
27. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them,
28. saying, We strictly charged you not to teach in this name: and behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.
29. But Peter and the apostles answered and said, We must obey God rather than men.
30. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging him on a tree.
31. Him did God exalt with his right hand [to be] a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.
32. And we are witnesses of these things; and [so is] the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them that obey him.
33. But they, when they heard this, were cut to the heart, and minded to slay them.
34. But there stood up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in honor of all the people, and commanded to put the men forth a little while.
35. And he said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves as touching these men, what ye are about to do.
36. For before these days rose up Theudas, giving himself out to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were dispersed, and came to nought.
37. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the enrolment, and drew away [some of the] people after him: he also perished; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered abroad.
38. And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown:
39. but if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow them; lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God.
40. And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles unto them, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41. They therefore departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name.
42. And every day, in the temple and at home, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus [as] the Christ.