Ananias, Sapphira & the Fatal Flaw of Pretend Piety

In the opening chapters of Acts, Luke offers what is likely the most comprehensive description of a healthy church in the New Testament. Here we learn that as “awe came upon every soul” (Acts 2:43), the Jerusalem Church listened to the apostles’ teachings, broke bread in each other’s homes, and shared their resources generously while the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–37).

By any measure, the Church of Jerusalem was healthy and thriving.

And yet, while it’s easy to think that the Jerusalem Church was nearly perfect, Luke disabuses us of any such notion when he describes a shocking episode of moral failure and instant judgment—God strikes two people dead three hours apart!

Their names were Ananias and Sapphira.

After selling some property, they laid the proceeds from the sale at the apostles’ feet. But what looked like a generous donation was a work of calculated deception. What they claimed was a total donation of the proceeds was actually a partial one. They kept back some of the money for themselves. Thus, they lied about how generous they were being, about the extent of their sacrifice.

The result? Both dropped dead at the apostles’ feet, Ananias first, followed by his wife three hours later (Acts 5:1–11).

Table of contents

An overreaction?
1. Sin isn’t bad simply because it harms others
2. Faithfulness in one area doesn’t justify sin in another
3. God-honoring devotion requires proper motives
Conclusion

An overreaction?

Many read this account and are understandably disturbed by the severity of God’s judgment. Sure, Ananias and Sapphira shouldn’t have lied, but is the death penalty really appropriate? Why didn’t they receive the same divine forbearance that God is famous for showing his rebellious people? After all, they were making a generous (if partial) donation!

To answer these questions, we must first answer another one: Why would God inscripturate this episode in the first place? Why do we need to know about it? Both the event itself and its inclusion in Acts feels like a blemish that is deliberately inserted into the forever-record of a church that is otherwise thriving.

Indeed, the insertion is deliberate. Ananias’s and Sapphira’s deaths serve a pedagogical function for the Jerusalem Church in a crucial stage of its development, and its inclusion in Acts means that the lesson intended for the Jerusalem Church stands as a lesson for every church.

Through this episode of sin and judgment, God made three things very clear.

1. Sin isn’t bad simply because it harms others

It’s significant that God punished so severely sin that seemed to do so little—if any—public damage. The couple didn’t slander or kill anyone. We’re not told that their partial gift caused any suffering. If God hadn’t (somehow) told Peter they were lying, it’s likely that no one would have ever known.

So what’s the big deal?

Peter pinpoints their error: “You have not lied to man but to God” (Acts 5:4; cf. 5:3). The lesson to the burgeoning church was unmistakable: Sin isn’t bad simply because it harms others. Sin is bad because it’s against God regardless of who else it affects. Sin is theological before it’s sociological.

Confusion here is just as common today as it was then. Even the most faithful Christians are tempted to evaluate the severity of their sin by its observable consequences: How much is it hurting myself or my neighbor? What damage is it causing? If I can’t discern any damage to myself or others, is it really that bad? With this logic, it becomes much easier to tolerate or even indulge sin that we deem victimless:

• “My boyfriend and I are both consenting adults.”
• “I lied about why I was late.”
• “I got drunk last night at my house.”

But this social, purely horizontal understanding of sin’s offensiveness is precisely what the Ananias and Sapphira episode warns against! Their partial donation did no perceptible harm to anyone! Their deception was an affront to God. And that is what makes all sin serious, regardless of who else it affects.

In putting Ananias and Sapphira to death, God warned the Jerusalem Church of reducing the wickedness of sin against him to self-adjudicated ethical pragmatism, e.g., “If God is the only one ‘harmed’ by my sin, it’s not that bad.”

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2. Faithfulness in one area doesn’t justify sin in another

Peter’s words to Sapphira are particularly illuminating: “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?” (Acts 5:9). The word “test” here (Greek πειράσαι) indicates that they knew God disapproved of what they were doing and rolled the dice anyway.

Could it be that they thought their generous gift would secure a free pass for their lie? That sacrifice in one area would cause God to overlook sin in another? We can only speculate about their thought process, but God’s swift judgment served as a clear warning to anyone entertaining this sort of presumptive moral accounting.

Imagine how quickly the church’s call to holiness would morph into a carefully managed economy of sin if someone could earn immunity from calculated disobedience with a few good deeds. And yet, when we become aware of sin in our own lives, a quick review of our faithfulness in other areas is often all it takes to soothe our consciences with a reminder that on balance our “obedience portfolio” is in good standing. “God’s not a stickler,” we tell ourselves. He knows no one’s perfect. But God simply isn’t impressed when we minimize known sin—our irritability in the home, our laziness at work—because we feel like our prayer life, service to the church, or generous giving make up for it.

The Ananias and Sapphira episode makes it clear that believers are called to execute their sin, not manage it.

To be sure, we’ll always fight sin on this side of eternity, and no amount of faithfulness will make us right with God. Only Christ’s righteousness received through faith can do that. But having received that righteousness and the indwelling Spirit, the Ananias and Sapphira episode makes it clear that believers are called to execute their sin, not manage it.

3. God-honoring devotion requires proper motives

Perhaps more than anything, the Ananias and Sapphira narrative highlights God’s hatred of religious hypocrisy and superficiality.

True, the Jerusalem Church’s devotion to the Lord and to each other (cf. Acts 2:42–47 and 4:32–35) is impressive. But the couple’s execution signaled that it’s possible to engage in outwardly admirable religious activity with worldly motives, and that such religiosity is odious to God.

Ananias and Sapphira lied about how much they gave because they wanted to be seen as more generous than they really were. Perhaps they wanted a reputation like that of Barnabas who donated all the proceeds from the sale of his own property just a few verses earlier (Acts 4:36–37). Either way, their deception revealed that their offering to the Lord was a strategy for purchasing something they valued more than him—the praise of man.

Honest introspection reveals that we’re more like Ananias and Sapphira than we care to admit. Perhaps it’s more subtle, but we’re similarly superficial when:

• We post pictures of carefully marked up and highlighted Bible passages to publicly signal our spiritual depth.
• We pray for someone for two seconds and tell them, “I’ve been praying for you.”
• We turn Christian community into networking by selectively serving those in our church who will advance our interests.
• We condemn career idolization only to make our family/children the center of our lives.

In each case, our outwardly Christian behavior cloaks—and often issues from—a heart that is more gripped by worldly treasure than Christ.

Through the story of Ananias and Sapphira, the Jerusalem believers were reminded that it’s possible to express devotion to God in ways that anger him, viz., devotion that views God as a means to an end. He will not tolerate idolatry cloaked in Jesus’s name.

Conclusion

Why was God’s response to Ananias and Sapphira’s sin so severe? Setting aside the fact that all sin deserves death, it was an object lesson that put the young Church of Jerusalem on notice. A permissive view of sin and false piety was not only an affront to God but would corrupt the church at large, if left unchecked.

Donald Barnhouse once quipped that if God still struck people dead for lying, each church would need a morgue in the basement. While I’m grateful that God’s punishment of Ananias and Sapphira functioned as a unique warning—not a normal pattern—the sin it highlighted is just as serious today as it was then.

Viewed through a twenty-first-century lens, we might assume that two people falling over dead for lying was a bane on the church’s growth. After all, “great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things” (Acts 5:11). But just three verses later, we learn that “more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women” (Acts 5:14).

As it turns out, taking both sin and God’s holiness seriously doesn’t deter church growth, but promotes it.

Share your thoughts

What can we learn from God’s judgment of Ananias and Sapphira? Join us in the Word by Word group to share your thoughts.

Chase’s recommended resources for further reflection

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