We have just read about how the believers shared their possessions, now we read about how it can all go wrong. What happened in Chapter 4 was motivated by the Holy Spirit, what we see here is motivated by the flesh.
Ananias and Sapphira sold some property, but only gave part of it to the apostles (ie to the church). Now the problem was not that they kept some of the money back for themselves, the problem was that they sought to deceive the church, and in effect try to deceive God.
Peter confronted Ananias and Ananias dropped dead. later his wife came and told the same lie, she too dropped dead!
Not surprisingly this had quite an effect on the church, and wider afield. The key points are that we must not deceive God, and in lying to men we lie to God. Also we have responsibility for the possessions that we have, and it is up to us how we handle them.
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