Acts 5-6

Acts 5 begins with Ananias and Sapphira, who sold a piece of property and didn't give all the money to the apostles.

Their sin wasn't that they kept back part of the money; their sin was that they claimed that they had given the apostles ALL the money. They lied. If they had sold the property, gave a proportion of the money to the apostles, and then been up front about it ("We sold some land, here's 50% of the money we made"), everything would have been fine. But they didn't. They claimed that they were more generous than they actually were, and they paid a heavy price for that claim.

My issue with this passage is that whilst I agree that they did wrong, the punishment seems far in excess of the sin. Other people in the Bible have been known to lie, but they didn't get punished as severely. Rahab, for instance, lied to the king of Jericho about the Israelite spies; and was commended for it. Was Peter dealing too strictly with the issue? On the face of it, yes, but we also need to consider that this was the very early church, and precedents had to be set. If lying was not treated severely, it could become endemic, and destroy the young church.

Acts 6 concentrates on the early organization of the church, and how responsibility should be spread amongst the members so that priorities can be met by different groups; prayer, leadership, looking after the poor. This chapter also introduces Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, who was chosen as one of the seven who would handle distribution of food to the poor.