Bible Study Moment

I definitely don’t understand why Acts 4:32 – 5:11 is not all in the same chapter. It has two examples of stewardship, one very good and the other bad. Acts 4:32-36 tells how those with property would at times sell some property and donate all the proceeds for the apostles to distribute to those in need in the church, with Barnabas’s sale given as an example. Then Acts 5:1-11 tells of another couple, Ananias and Sapphira, pretending to do the same thing except they have kept some of the money while saying they were donating it all. Somehow Peter knows what is going on because he confronts first Ananias and later Sapphira in ways that I’m confident seminaries do not teach. Both of them drop dead. Then as the CEB translation puts it “Trepidation and dread seized the whole church and all who heard what had happened.”

Luke seems to be giving an example of what is in Galatians 6:7 (and Sen. Sam Ervin quoted during the Watergate Hearings almost 50 years ago) “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Ervin of course was quoting the King James Version. If you need a modern translation the CEB says “Make no mistake, God is not mocked. A person will harvest what they plant.”

Mark Phillips