Ananias and Sapphira

A little something from a recent appointment. We’re covering Acts. I don’t think the brother got any of this, but as I was trying to explain it to him, at least the Lord really impressed me. Those kind of appointments are becoming more and more common recently, not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing…

In Acts 4:32-37, you have a positively wonderful scene of the church life. Multitudes are coming into the church, they are all in one accord and “not even one said that any of his possessions was his own”. It goes on, “for as many as were owners of lands or of houses sold them and brought the proceeds of the things which were sold”. Can you imagine that? The standard of the church life at the time was that everyone sold their possessions and had all things in common. In Matthew 19:27, when talking about this exact thing, the selling of one’s possessions, the Lord declared that it was “impossible” with man. Yet this was the standard in the church life at the time. This was what was normal, what everyone in the church life was doing.

Then in Acts 5:1-11, in walks Ananias and Sapphira and they can’t do it. They look around and this is the standard of the church life they’ve found themselves in. They have a heart to do the same, they even sell their land. But with the proceeds in their hands, they can’t do it. Without a doubt, they know they should. Everyone else has done it! And perhaps to them, it seemed that no one else had any problem with it. Yet, when it came down to it, with the money in their hands, they couldn’t do it. They would agree with Jesus in Matthew 19:27; with them, it was impossible.

This case is significant because it is this is perhaps the first point of the decline of the church. And it was a sin for which the Holy Spirit struck them dead. But, with different things that happened on the campus with the students in the past few weeks, the question is what should they have done? In truth, I feel like the church life is full of Ananias’s and Sapphira’s. We are all Annanias and Sapphira. We look around at the church life, at the different standards, opening up your home, loving yet being despised, speaking in the meetings, preaching the gospel, for us young people, keeping yourself until after the training, and we don’t know what we are supposed to do.

Ananias and Sapphira couldn’t do it. The rich young ruler, on whom the same charge was laid in Matthew 19, also couldn’t do it. Both missed the point. Ananias and Sapphira put on a show to make everyone think that they could; the rich young ruler didn’t even try, he gave up and went away sorrowing.

Now, I don’t have any further light on the solution. The solution is the same as it’s always been: with God all things are possible. But from this, I appreciate that this situation in the church life, unrealistic standards and broken people who can’t make it, is not at all new or unusual. In a sense, the genuine church life is a church life of unrealistic expectations. I don’t have a positive or clean way of ending this. This is the messy church life. I don’t have a way to cleanly end this post because I’m still not quite sure what to do. This may sound cheesy but this post hasn’t really been finished in my experience yet, so I can’t really write as if it has.

But here’s something from another appointment that, in the mean time, is/has been helpful:

We should be grateful to the Lord that even our believing and obeying are also God-given; they do not necessitate our striving or struggling. Normally, when a feeling of the conscience corresponds to the growth in life, we spontaneously have faith and submit in obedience. If ever a feeling of the conscience surpasses our trust in the supply of God’s grace and our ability to obey, it is a premature feeling and proves that our growth of life has not reached this stage. In this case we should hide under the blood and wait until our life advances to this stage. Then spontaneously we will have sufficient faith to apply the grace of God and obey the feeling of the conscience. (Experience of Life, Ch 6)

Serving is really good. Complicated, busy, tiring, tricky, hard, really enjoyable. I’m enjoying it more than anything else I’ve ever done and I don’t say that lightly. I’m going to miss this a lot. I really hope I don’t, but I can’t see, from where I stand now, how I won’t.