Ananias and Sapphira

What is this page about?

Most people who know the names Ananias and Sapphira heard the story as a warning. Usually it was one of two warnings. Be careful what you keep back from God. Or: be careful not to go against God’s man.

Both warnings point at ordinary church members. This page asks: does the story really say either of them?

The short answer

1. The money was theirs, and Peter says so.

While you kept it, didn’t it remain your own? After it was sold, wasn’t it in your power?

Acts 5:4 · World English Bible

In simple words: While you still had the land, it was yours. After you sold it, the money was yours to use as you wished.

To keep the money would have been no sin. John Calvin wrote that Ananias

should nevertheless have been counted faithful, though he had kept that which was his own.

John Calvin

In simple words: would still have been a faithful man if he had kept what was his own.

2. Read across the chapter break. Acts 4 ends with a man named Barnabas. He sold a field and “brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet” (Acts 4:37). The church honoured him. Acts 5 begins with the word “But”. Ananias does the same thing, with “a certain part” (Acts 5:2) of the money. He copied an honest gift.

3. The lie was about the full amount, and it was planned. His wife knew about it. Peter says that they “agreed together” (Acts 5:9). And Peter asks Sapphira only one question: “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” (Acts 5:8) Calvin said it in a short way: Ananias

honoreth the apostles’ feet more than God’s eyes.

John Calvin

In simple words: cared more about what the apostles would see at their feet than about what God’s eyes would see.

4. The lie was to God, not to Peter. “You haven’t lied to men, but to God.” (Acts 5:4) Peter takes himself out of the matter. And he does not speak a sentence of death.

5. The same chapter refuses to simply obey religious leaders. Eighteen verses later, the apostles stand before the council of the high priest. They say: “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29) Later in Acts, the people of Berea are called “noble” because they checked if Paul was right (Acts 17:11).

6. In Acts, God strikes people who grab honour. He does not strike people who doubt. Only one other person is struck dead in Acts. He is King Herod. A crowd called him a god, and he accepted it. He died “because he didn’t give God the glory” (Acts 12:23). A man named Simon tried to buy spiritual power. He was told to turn back to God (Acts 8:22). And Thomas, who doubted, was shown the wounds of Jesus.

7. So the nearest modern case is not the person who doubts. It is the person who claims something that he knows is not his: that he gave something up, that God showed him something, or that he was generous. He claims it for the honour it brings. This can happen among the ordinary members. It happens most easily at the front.

What did they really do wrong?

Here are eight things that people have said Ananias and Sapphira did wrong. Use only Acts 5:1-11. Does Peter really accuse them of each thing?

All four true charges describe one thing: a planned religious lie.

When an ordinary member does stand where Ananias stood

Can an ordinary church member do what Ananias did? Yes, but only in one way: he claims before the church that he has given something to God, and he has not given it.

To give little is not this. To give nothing is not this. To keep your money matters private is not this. Jesus said it simply:

Therefore when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men.

Matthew 6:2 · World English Bible

In simple words: When you give to people in need, do not blow a trumpet in front of you. The pretenders do that in the meeting houses and in the streets, so that people will praise them.

Every Christian is a manager of what God has given. That is ordinary Christian teaching, and nobody needs to announce it. Said one time, it is true. But this man repeats it in public as a claim that he has given the business up. And he keeps every good thing that an owner has. The facts do not support the claim. And it brings him the honour of a giver.

The same pattern can appear in one promise.

What did they owe, by the words that they announced? $100,000. The church gave more than that, so the full promise was due.

The pulpit is even nearer

Ananias and Sapphira were ordinary members. They were not leaders. So what made their act what it was? It was not an office. It was a false claim, made before God, to get spiritual honour.

This is why the nearest modern cases are usually at the front. The people who make the most public spiritual claims have the most chances to make false ones.

Here are some examples. They are general. They are about no person.

• Someone attacks a person and calls it “a word from the Lord”.
• Someone claims that God showed him a person would die, or get well, when God did not.
• Someone invents, after an event, signs that “God had told us before”.
• Someone makes the numbers bigger: people at meetings, people who came to Christ, healings, gifts. And he accepts the spiritual honour.
• Someone calls ordinary planning a wonderful instruction from God.
• Someone says that God ordered a request for money, when the real reason was the wish for a bigger organisation.
• Someone takes public honour for a gift that came mostly from others.
• Someone quietly keeps control of property and says again and again that he has given everything up.
• Someone makes up stories, or tells only parts of them, to look full of God’s power.

These things are not all like Ananias only because they are wrong. A sermon can be wrong in many ways. The preacher may explain a passage wrongly. He may be too hard. He may believe that God guided him, and be mistaken. None of this looks like Acts 5.

A case comes near to Acts 5 when three things meet:

1. A false claim. Something is shown as true, and it is not: a gift, a thing given up, a message from God, a healing, a number.
2. The person knows. He knows that it is not so. Ananias knew the price.
3. For honour, in God’s name. It is said before God and his people, and it brings spiritual power, honour or trust.

Four made-up cases

The great ship and the small pool

Think about the person who most often hears this story as a warning.

She has heard a preacher say that God told him something, and she is not sure that it is true. Or she has lost someone, and she cannot fit this with what she was told about God’s plan. Or she has noticed that a number announced from the front is not the number she saw.

She has not stood up and claimed anything. She is quietly asking, “Is it so?”

The Titanic was a very large ship that sank in the sea in 1912. For this believer, Ananias and Sapphira are as far away as the Titanic is from a person who stands in a small pool in the garden.

She is not trying the kind of spiritual cheating that the story shows. The Bible is patient with people like her.

• A father said to Jesus: “I believe. Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) Jesus answered with a healing. He did not answer with hard words.
• Thomas was shown the wounds.
• And to test claims is not a weakness. It is a command: “Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) And: “test the spirits, whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1).

The Bible is just as clear that the weight grows with the claim.

Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment.

James 3:1 · World English Bible

In simple words: My brothers, not many of you should become teachers. You know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

The hardest words of Jesus were for religious people who made a show: “they do all their works to be seen by men” (Matthew 23:5).

This table shows the argument of this page. It does not measure anything.

Is this story about you?

Has anyone ever used Ananias and Sapphira as a warning to you? Then ask these things about yourself.

1. I have not claimed before the church that I gave something that I did not give.
2. I have not claimed a word from God, a healing, or a thing given up, when I knew it was untrue.
3. My questions about a teaching or a preacher are honest. I want to know if it is so.
4. If I made a promise of money in public, I have paid it, or I have said plainly that I cannot.
5. I am not looking for a name as a holy or generous person that my private life would not support.
6. If I keep some of my money, I do it openly. I am free to do so.

If all six are true of you, this story is not a warning against you.

Check it yourself

Here are five things. The first takes fifteen minutes. The last takes no time at all.

1. Read Acts 4:32 to 5:42 at one time. Do not stop at the chapter break. You will meet Barnabas, then Ananias and Sapphira, then “We must obey God rather than men.”
2. Read Acts 8:9-24, 12:20-23 and 17:10-12. Who is struck? Who is told to turn back? Who is praised for checking?
3. Read Matthew 6:1-4 and Ecclesiastes 5:4-5. Giving in secret, and keeping what you promise.
4. Read Calvin on Acts 5. It is free online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. It is short, and it is plain about what Ananias wanted. The English is old.
5. Remember the last time you heard a sermon on this story. Do this one. At whom did the warning point? Now read Acts 5:4 and 5:29 next to it.