Honest to God

     The early church was not a utopia. We sometimes imagine those first believers as spiritually pristine, floating from one prayer meeting to the next in perfect harmony. But Luke, the careful historian, won't let us hold that illusion for long. Just verses after describing a community so unified they held everything in common, he introduces us to Ananias and Sapphira. Their story is uncomfortable and it should be.
     Acts 4, we meet Barnabas, a man so transformed by the Spirit that he sold a field and laid the entire proceeds at the apostles' feet. No fanfare, no conditions, no holding back. He became the ideal example for Spirit-filled generosity, and the community rightly honored him for it. Barnabas earned significant reputation through his radical sacrifice (although I’m sure that he didn’t do it to increase his reputation).
     Then another couple, another property sale, another gift laid at the apostles' feet. But something is different. Ananias and Sapphira sold their land and brought a portion to the apostles while claiming it was the whole amount. They wanted what Barnabas had received, the admiration and respect, without paying the same price. They wanted to look like Barnabas without living like Barnabas.
     Peter makes clear that they were under no obligation to sell. "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?" he asks. "And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?" The early church practiced radical generosity, but it was voluntary generosity. No one was forced to give. No one was required to sell property. Ananias and Sapphira could have kept everything. They could have given half and said, "We're giving half." That would have been both generous and honest. Instead, they presented a partial gift as a total sacrifice. The sin was not keeping money. The sin was pretending they hadn't.
     Luke uses a particular Greek word for what they did, a word that would have sent shivers down the spine of any Jewish reader familiar with their Scriptures. The term is "enosphisato," meaning to secretly keep back or misappropriate. It's the same word used in the Greek Old Testament for Achan's sin in Joshua 7. After the fall of Jericho, God commanded that all the plunder be devoted to him. Achan secretly kept some for himself, and his deception brought judgment on all Israel. Luke is drawing a deliberate parallel. Just as Achan's hidden sin threatened Israel at the beginning of the conquest, Ananias and Sapphira's hidden sin threatened the church at the beginning of its mission.
     Peter's confrontation reveals the true nature of their offense. "Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?" The question is jarring. We don't often think of respectable church members as being filled by Satan. But Peter sees what we often miss: the heart is never neutral territory. It will be filled by something, by someone. A heart that isn't yielded to the Spirit becomes vulnerable to the enemy. And notice that Peter doesn't excuse Ananias by blaming Satan. "Why have you contrived this deed in your heart?" he asks. Satan influenced, but Ananias chose. The filling was real, but so was the responsibility.
     Then Peter makes a statement with enormous theological weight, "You have not lied to man but to God." Think about what that means. To lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God. The Spirit is not merely God's influence or energy. The Spirit is God himself, personally present in the community. When Ananias and Sapphira deceived the church, they were deceiving the One who dwells in the church. They treated the all-knowing God as if He could be managed, as if they could curate their image before the community while hiding the truth from the Almighty.
     God’s subsequent judgment was swift and severe. Ananias heard Peter's words and fell down dead. Three hours later, Sapphira arrived, not knowing what had happened. Peter gave her a chance to tell the truth. She didn't take it. She confirmed the lie, and she met the same fate as her husband. United in deception, they were united in judgment.
Why such extreme consequences? Don't we all sin? Isn't God merciful? Several realities help us understand what's happening here. First, this was a foundational moment for the church. When a bridge is being built, the supports must be perfect. A flaw at the foundation threatens everything built on it. God was protecting the church's foundation, ensuring that hypocrisy would not become normalized at the very start. Second, the sin was not merely against the community but against the Holy Spirit directly. They were testing whether God really knows, really sees, really cares. Third, and perhaps most importantly, God's judgment on Ananias and Sapphira was also God's protection of the church. He cared too much about his people to let pretense become acceptable.
     The result was what Luke calls "great fear." Not mild concern, but profound reverent awe. This fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard.
     We might expect that such severe judgment would drive people away. Who would want to join a community where God strikes down hypocrites? But the opposite happened. Luke tells us that "more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women." The judgment didn't shrink the church. It accelerated its growth.
     Why? Because authentic holiness is more attractive than comfortable compromise. People are not drawn to communities that tolerate everything. They are drawn to communities that stand for something, communities where truth matters, where the gap between public profession and private reality is taken seriously. The world has plenty of organizations where you can perform. The church was supposed to be different, a place where you could be real because the all-knowing God was already there.
     Luke notes that "none of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem." There's a tension here that reveals something important. Outsiders hesitated to join casually, but they deeply respected the community. Holiness creates both attraction and appropriate distance. Like a blazing fire, it draws us with its warmth and light while warning us not to approach carelessly. The early church was not a club anyone could casually enter. It was a holy community where God himself dwelt.
     What followed the purification was power. Signs and wonders multiplied through the apostles. The sick were brought into the streets on cots and mats, hoping even Peter's shadow might fall on them. People gathered from towns around Jerusalem, bringing the afflicted, and Luke tells us "they were all healed." Every one of them. The same Spirit who judged deception now flowed through the church in healing power. The purified church became the powerful church.
     This is the pattern we see throughout Scripture. Integrity and power go together. A community purged of pretense becomes a channel for God's work. When the internal life of a group matches its external claims, it gains the moral authority necessary for genuine impact. The church that fears the Lord is the church that flourishes.
     Today, we may not sell property and lie about the proceeds, but we have our own versions of the Ananias syndrome. We project spiritual maturity while harboring secret sin. We claim commitment while living compromise. We want the reputation of faithfulness without the cost of actual faithfulness. We perform for one another while hiding from God, as if that were possible. The story of Ananias and Sapphira is a warning, but it's also an invitation. God's judgment was severe because his love for the church is fierce. He will not allow his people to settle for pretense when transformation is available. He sees through our performance, not to condemn us, but to call us to something real. The gospel doesn't produce polished images. It produces genuine change.
     Integrity matters. Not because we earn God's favor by being authentic, but because God is present in his church, and He cannot be fooled. The community that values truth over image, authenticity over appearance, becomes the community where his power flows freely.