Acts 5 – 6
Chapter 5 is one of those passages that rarely gets talked about because of the finality of it all. Verses 5:1 & 2 are the charges before Peter:
Once a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira fully cooperating, committed fraud. He sold some property 2 and kept some of the proceeds, but he pretended to make a full donation to the Lord’s emissaries.
In all honesty I am not a big fan of this either, since Ananias and his wife pay the ultimate price for doing this, their lives. Imagine if you were new to a church and the first sermon you heard was on this passage and the message was you need to tithe consistently and honestly. Would you sit tight and give without question or run for the hills?
I read this and think how OLD TESTAMENT. Really the grace that is given by Jesus should be enough to cover the sins and not kill off the followers. As you can see I have a problem with what happened here and note that no one died like this before Jesus.
Verse 5:15 also raises an eyebrow where Peter is the deity and not Jesus:
The church’s renown was so great that when Peter walked down the street, people would carry out their sick relatives hoping his shadow would fall on some of them as he passed.
I often wonder why Peter became the focus here. Also, when Jesus spoke to the 12 that they would do things greater is this what He meant? Why does it seem to stop so early with believers? Or has it? My experience is a case in point.
Verse 6:4 has the early church realizing their message is getting muddled by service:
so we can maintain our focus on praying and serving—not meals—but the message.
The focus became on food distribution and not serving God. The message was lost because all the effort was taken up on logistics. Those who point to any branch or party of the government and say they are doing the work of Jesus miss this. Just because they are doing things “like” Jesus does not mean they are doing things for the love of Jesus. I believe that is what the early church noticed early on.
Our service can overwhelm us at times where God takes a back seat because the need is so great. Think about it, Jesus even mentioned this when addressing Judas for chastising Mary, there will always be the poor. We need to ensure that our “works” and “deeds” are to deliver the Gospel and not just make everyone happy about “serviing”.