ACTS OF APOSTLES 5

EDEN HOUSE
7 min readJul 3, 2024

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By Adesoji Fasanya

Image from jw.org

The above portion of New Testament scripture has been a subject of varying degrees of interpretation. Some have implicated Peter as the culprit, acting against the nature of God. The position of this event is even more contrasting for many as they feel this New Testament event is more aligned with their caricature perspective of legalism and judgment of the Old Testament held. Some preachers avoid sermons and questions around Ananias and Sapphira. However, as we rediscover Luke’s purpose in telling this story in his Theophilus treatise, it will be clear what he intended and what he was telegraphing, and that will help us understand the event in its biblical context. Another important point is that we get to see that the entire Bible as one book with one thought that floats through the entire book.

At the dawn of the first century, much of the Jewish people and their custom had been Hellenized and Greek had become the famous language. Under the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246BC), at Alexandria in Egypt, the Hebrew Bible was translated to Greek and it is called the Septuagint (abbrv. LXX). This was necessary as Jews had picked up Greek as their language and everyone learned to understand and communicate with it.

Protestant authors Archer and Chirichigno list 340 places where the New Testament cites the Septuagint (LXX) but only 33 places where it cites from the Masoretic Text rather than the Septuagint. This goes to show how the LXX was greatly received and used by Jews of the Second Temple Period.

New Testament authors would often use thematic telegraphing to point the minds of readers to previous events in the Hebrew Bible. They would often use Greek words borrowed from the LXX while writing their gospels and/or epistles. The reader who already understood the association of such words to specific events would without a doubt create a type-scene between the text and the Old Testament event, forming a parallel.

An example of this is found in Acts 5, with the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Let us however begin from Acts 4 where Luke introduced Barnabas.

“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

The phrase “at the apostles’ feet” describes dedication and in this case, it is a property (land, to be specific) that is being dedicated. It telegraphs back to Leviticus 27, where the people would make a pledge and redeem it by means of dedicating their lands to Yahweh. What is being dedicated, therefore, becomes a devoted object, one separated unto Yahweh.

This is how Polhill describes it;

“But what of the practice of laying the proceeds at the apostle’s feet? The gesture was one of submission to another. At this point, the Twelve were the representatives appointed by Christ as the foundation of the true people of God. The submission was not to them but to the one they represented. To lay one’s gift at their feet was to offer it to Christ.” (Polhill, 1992).

Another important note was Luke’s description that Barnabas was a Levite. Levites were not supposed to owe lands according to the Levitical System (Num 18: 24, Deut 10:9). However, they owned lands during Jubilees, which is some type of lease that is to be returned at the next Jubilee (Polhill, 1992). We see an example of this with Jeremiah (Jer. 32:7ff).

It therefore goes to show that the people were communal and Barnabas (in specific), a Levite had sold his field which he owned outright, and then he took the proceeds and laid it at the apostles’ feet. His actions closely parallel the voluntary dedication of a field to the sanctuary in Lev 27:19–21. By doing this, the proceeds became a devoted thing, that is, it belonged to Yahweh.

This was the scene, then we move on to Acts 5:1–11 where Ananias and Sapphira did the same thing, however, they hid a portion of the proceeds. They inadvertently stole from Yahweh or better put, they took a sacred thing and defiled it. This becomes clear when we examine the intertextual link with the use of a rare Greek word, “nosphizo” meaning to steal, rob, or remove; often translated as “keep back”. According to Polhill, “nosphizo” is used three times in the Greek Bible; describes Achan Sin, Acts 5, and Titus 2.

This immediately creates a type-scene between the sin of Achan and that of Ananias and Sapphira. Just as Achan stole devoted things after the conquest of Jericho which was the beginning of possessing the Promised Land (Joshua 7); Ananias and Sapphira stole at the beginning of the Church age.

Here is Fitzmyer comment on the Achan-Acts connection;

“Such Old Testament incidents provide a certain typology: if that could happen at the beginning of Israel’s possession of the Promised Land, so something similar could come to pass at the beginning of the Christian community’s existence.”

Haenchen says,

“This story seems an exact parallel of Achan’s…like him, Ananias has misappropriated something which belongs to God (part of the promised money) and is punished by death for it.”

Macauley went further on the typological connection. He linked the story of the Garden of Eden to those of Achan and Ananias. To him, the sin common to all three stories is covetousness, and there are some patterns, such as the immediate ‘hiding’ of the transgression and the sin’s subsequent revealing before a protagonist. The connections can be summarized as follows;

1) Each story occurs at the beginning of a new era in salvation history (creation/entry into the land/Pentecost).

2) The crisis of each story is the misappropriation of a forbidden item (fruit/devoted things/land sale proceeds).

3) The sin of taking from God and of covetousness is similar in each story.

4) Sin is immediately followed by deception (hiding in the bushes/burying the things in the ground/lying).

5) Deception is revealed under interrogation by the ‘good’ protagonist (Yahweh/Joshua/Peter).

6) Judgement is passed upon the revelation of sin.

7) The death sentence is applied in each story.

8) Each story is explicitly interpreted in the Bible to apply to a corporate group of people.

As you grapple with the enormity of the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, you see the reason why Luke placed the event at the beginning of the Church movement and why he ended the story by mentioning the awe that fell on everyone. God would not allow His desecration of His name and His body — the church.

To conclude, let me quote directly from Hoch Brian Thomas (2010);

“The other sin involved in Josh 7:11 is the transgressing of the covenant and in Acts 5:9, the testing of the Holy Spirit. Though these two sins appear dissimilar at first, they are analogous. In Num 14:18–22, the idea of testing is said to be a breach of the covenant. In this passage, “testing” is presented as the essence of covenant transgression.”

“…none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and the wilderness, and yet have tested Me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it.” (Numbers 14:22).

He went further;

“The sin of Achan, Ananias, and Sapphira may be seen as examples of a covenant-breaking ‘testing’ of the deity. This sin always seems to be the same — it involves a denial of what God has said or promised in favor of one’s plans. Whether in the Garden, Jericho, or the dawn of the new age in Acts, this sin brings severe consequences.”

This shows clearly what the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was. It was breaking a covenant that was just beginning by defiling the holy body of Christ which is the Church.

As an afterthought, the untrue dichotomy that many drew between the Old Testament and the New (which was absent in the minds of New Testament authors) is why we struggle with scriptures like Acts 5.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

G. Archer and G. C. Chirichigno, Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: A Complete Survey, 25–32.

https://biblearchaeology.org/research/new-testament-era/4022-a-brief-history-of-the-septuagint

Polhill, J. B. Acts. NAC. Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1992.

Fitzmyer, J. A. Acts of the Apostles. AB. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1998.

Haenchen, E. The Acts of the Apostles. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1971.

3 Macauley, Acts, p. 59. The title of his sermon is “The Ghost of Achan.”

HOCH, BRIAN, THOMAS (2010) The Year of Jubilee and Old Testament Ethics: A Test Case in Methodology, Durham theses, Durham University.

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EDEN HOUSE
EDEN HOUSE

Written by EDEN HOUSE

A prophetic house with the divine mandate to raise a prophetic generation with true prophetic culture. IG: @propheticvibes Contact: edenhouseconnect@gmail.com

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