Acts 5:1–11: Testing the Spirit of the Lord
Introduction
At the end of Acts 4, we might have expected Luke to conclude the whole history with, “And they all lived happily ever after.” That expectation, however, would misjudge Luke’s intentions and the nature of the church. Within the church in every age, God is at work, accomplishing great and powerful things through the testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, within every age, there are also hypocrites whose true colors do not appear at first. In this story, we see how much hypocrites mimic genuine believers, and we also see how the Lord views hypocrisy. We also learn the important remedy to this problem in the church: the fear of the Lord drives out hypocrisy.
Discussion Questions
1. What was the overall pattern of generosity in the early church (Acts 4:32, 34–35)? What do we see in the specific example of Barnabas (Acts 4:36–37)? How similar would Ananias and Sapphira have looked to the other members of the church (vv. 1)? What did the Lord know that others could not have? How does this story sound like some of the other sin narratives in the Old Testament (Gen. 3; Gen. 6; Ex. 32; Josh. 7; 2 Sam. 11)? How is it different?
2. What do you think about Peter’s confrontation of Ananias (v. 3)? What does it mean for Satan to have “filled” Ananias’s “heart”? (v. 3a)? In what way did Ananias “lie to the Holy Spirit” (v. 3b)? What does Peter indicate about personal possessions and private property (v. 4a)? Why, then, would Ananias have done what he did (v. 4b)? Why do you think that it would be tempting to lie to God? In what ways are you tempted to do so?
3. In what way did Peter test Sapphira (v. 8)? How is Peter’s testing of Sapphira different from Sapphira’s testing of the Lord (v. 9)? What does it mean to “test the Lord,” and where do we see this phrase appear in the Old Testament? Why do you think that Sapphira was punished for the sin of her husband? Why were the young men so quick to bury both Ananias and also Sapphira after each person died? What does this teach us about the holiness of the church?
4. What do we make of the “double fear” that we see in this passage (vv. 5, 11)? How does the fear of the Lord keep us from hypocrisy? Why does Satan’s filling of Ananias’s heart disrupt Ananias’s sense of fear of the Lord? Why are we called to fear the Lord? Why is the fear of the Lord called the beginning of wisdom/knowledge (Job 28:28; Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10)? In what way does the fear of the Lord lead to life rather than death (Prov. 14:27)?
