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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 597. Ananias and Sapphira
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Literature
Dykes, J. O., From Jerusalem to Antioch (1875), 165.
Jenks, D., In the Face of Jesus Christ (1914), 250.
Lewis, Z. H., Petros, 191.
Luckock, H. M., Footprints of the Apostles as traced by Saint Luke in the Acts, i. (1905) 134.
Maclaren, A., The Acts of the Apostles (Bible Class Expositions) (1894), 55.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: The Acts of the Apostles i.-xii. (1907), 172.
Milligan, G., in Men of the Bible: Some Lesser-known Characters (1904), 249.
Parker, J., The City Temple, ii. (1872) 124; iii. (1873) 397.
Seekings, H. S., The Men of the Pauline Circle (1914), 127.
Stokes, G. T., The Acts of the Apostles (Expositor's Bible), i. (1891) 211.
Whyte, A., Bible Characters: Joseph and Mary to James (1900), 187.
Wright, G. F., in Sermons by the Monday Club, 17th Ser. (1891), 258.
Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, i. (1915) 54 (W. F. Boyd).
Dictionary of the Bible, i. (1898) 91 (J. A. Selbie).
Preacher's Magazine, iii. (1892) 376 (J. Bennett).
To understand fully the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, the two previous chapters must be carefully read. Persecution had driven the members of the Church closer to God and to one another; opposition had, in fact, become a source of strength and a crown of honour. The first result and marvellous proof of that oneness was the so-called “community of goods.” The chief way in which at that time a member of the Church expressed his unshaken devotion to the common cause, or his willingness to sacrifice to the last penny for the common weal, was by placing his realized capital at the disposal of the brotherhood. The endangered position of the little community thus tended to inflame the fervour of its charity, and gave a new impetus to that common relief fund which had been started at Pentecost. Many of the poorer converts, on joining the Christian community, would lose all help from Jewish sources, but so heartily did the richer members care for their needs that none were left destitute or in want.
There is nothing of modern communism in all this, but there is a lesson to the modern Church as to the obligations of wealth and the claims of brotherhood, which is all but universally disregarded. The spectre of communism is troubling every nation, and it will become more and more formidable, unless the Church learns that the only way to lay it is to live by the precepts of Jesus and to repeat in new forms the spirit of the primitive Church. The Christian sense of stewardship, not the abolition of the right of property, is the cure for the hideous facts which drive men to shriek, “Property is theft.”
The wealthy part of the Church was no doubt made up of two classes: men who were full of the new spirit, and so hearty in the cause of Jesus that they were forward of their own accord to put all they had into the Church treasury, in order that no lover of Jesus might lack; and men honest enough in their belief, only less enthusiastic or generous, who gave, partly indeed from goodwill, but partly also through the force of example or the fear of censure. To whatever extent this latter class existed, it formed a dangerous element. When high-pitched virtue becomes a fashion, men learn to pay to it the homage of hypocrisy.
Of these two classes the writer of the Book of Acts presents us with individual examples-of the former class, in the case of Joseph, or Barnabas, a wealthy Cypriot, who “having a field, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet”; of the latter, in the case of Ananias with Sapphira his wife, whose melancholy story is now before us.
Each of us is not only God's workman, but His steward. He has a duty of distribution as well as of accumulation laid upon him. God expects every man to have bestowed so much as well as laboured so much before his time comes.1 [Note: R. W. Barbour, Thoughts, 91.]