Don’t Get Caught Dead in Church
Don’t Get Caught Dead in Church
The Bible is both an exciting and a disturbing book.
On the one hand, it is a book that is filled with exciting accounts of God’s grace, mercy, and healing power. We read of the exodus from Egypt, of the walls of Jericho falling down, of David’s victory over the giant Goliath, of Daniel triumphing in the lion’s den. We read of the power of the Holy Spirit healing a crippled man at the Beautiful Gate of the temple just a couple of chapters earlier in the book of Acts. This is all wonderful, exciting stuff.
But then there are the other stories—what we might designate the darker side of the Bible. There is a flood that exterminates all humanity with the exception of one family (Gen. 6–9). There is the fire from heaven that incinerates the entire towns of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19). There is the slaughter of many of the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan in the time of Joshua. There is the stoning of Achan and his whole family merely for stealing a few objects from the spoils of Jericho (Josh. 7). These stories are not so wonderful and exciting. They seem dark and disturbing. What do they say about the character of a God who would do such things—and about the people who would follow such a God?
Turning the World Upside Down
Iain M. Duguid
In this practical, winsome guide, Iain Duguid explores the continuing work of Jesus after the ascension in Acts 1–8, encouraging believers today toward gospel-driven, Spirit-filled mission.
Such a story faces us in Acts 5. Consider what happens here: We have a man and a woman who make an extremely generous donation to the church at considerable personal cost. There is then a minor miscommunication about whether or not their gift represents the whole of the proceeds from the sale of their property. The next thing you know they are both dead, struck down by the hand of God. That’s a pretty disturbing picture. Yet if we are going to understand, love, and serve the God of the Bible, we are going to have to come to grips with stories like these.
Sin Is Serious
To begin with, we need to see that sin is serious. I’ve read many internet discussions of these difficult passages in the Bible, and one thing that is immediately obvious is the difficulty that many people have in comprehending the true weightiness of sin. We find it hard to accept that sin is deadly, even though the Bible explicitly tells us this truth. In Romans 6:23 we are told that the wages of sin is death. What sin deserves—all sin and every sin, sins of omission as well as commission, from the smallest to the greatest infraction of God’s holiness—is perpetual separation from the God from whom all life flows. Nonetheless we have a hard time believing that that estimation of sin is really true and right.
The difficulty we have in accepting God’s opinion of sin is not new, of course. Back in the garden of Eden, God said to Adam, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). But Adam and Eve believed the serpent rather than God when the serpent said, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). A more liberal approach to sin seemed much more reasonable—why would such a small action lead to death? Yet the consequence of that decision to trust the serpent rather than God was the entry of death for all people into the world. In the same way, God said to his people at Jericho, in effect, “Don’t take anything from the spoils of war, for I am the one who wins the victory for you” (see Josh. 6:16–18). But Achan saw some desirable items among the spoils there: a Babylonian robe, some silver, a wedge of gold (Josh. 7:21). It seemed a waste simply to destroy these beautiful things! Surely no one would miss them. And so, while no one was looking, he took them and buried them under his tent. The result was death for himself and his family (Josh. 7:25).
In the same way, Ananias and Sapphira sell a piece of land (Acts 5:1). They wanted to be just like Barnabas, who has sold a field and brought all the proceeds to the apostles for their ministry to the poor (Acts 4:36–37). More precisely, Ananias and Sapphira want to be thought to be just like Barnabas, without it having to cost them everything they have acquired.
There was no rule in the church that said you had to sell your property, or that if you did, you had to bring all the money to the apostles. Ananias and Sapphira could have gone to the apostles and said, “Here’s 10 percent of the proceeds of our field. Use it as you think best.” That would have been good—but it wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive as what Barnabas had done.
And impressing people is the name of the game for Ananias and Sapphira. They want to give people the impression that they are giving everything to God, while at the same time keeping a little in reserve for themselves. This is their sin. They want to use God as a means to achieve their real goal, which is pleasing the idol of respect and public honor. It seems to them to be only a very small sin, a tiny lie, yet underlying it is a breach of the first commandment. There, God said, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. . . . You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:2–3). Ultimately that “small” sin—putting their own glory ahead of God—costs them their very lives. Sin is serious business because our God is an awesome, holy God—the same God who revealed himself to Moses in fiery glory at Mount Sinai (see Ex. 19).
Putting it like that helps us see why sin is so serious. We typically think of “sin” in terms of various specific sins: particular outward instances of bad behavior, acts that we then classify into sizes—small, medium, and large. Murder, adultery, and theft would be large sins; outbursts of rage, internet pornography, and cheating on your taxes might be medium-size sins; holding a grudge, everyday lust, and coveting your friend’s car are small sins. Of course, these categories are flexible: the sins of others are more likely to rate as medium or large sins, while our own sins are easily classified as small. The devil on our shoulder (which is actually just our flesh), says, “That kind of sexual immorality is no big deal—and anyway, we’re going to get married. We can be proud and self-centered because we’re busy doing important things for God. How unreasonable it would be to expect someone like me to be humble and thoughtful about the needs and desires of those right around me!”
Every time we sin, we are putting something else ahead of God’s glory.
But behind each and every individual sin—whether small, medium, or large—there is a heart attitude from which it flows. Every time we sin, we are putting something else ahead of God’s glory. It may be our comfort or our sense of self-importance or our pleasure or our desire for a temporary escape from reality, but there is something that our hearts are valuing at that moment more than the glory of God or obedience to him. That rebellious attitude is what makes each individual sin, however “small,” serious in God’s sight. It is an act of cosmic treason against our Creator, in which we choose to believe his mortal enemy, Satan, instead of trusting his word. Ironically, like Ananias and Sapphira, we can even turn something that looks like an act of tremendous self-sacrifice and service to God into an opportunity to make others think more positively of us than is really true. Whenever we allow others to have a better image of us than we deserve, we perpetrate a lie and sin not just against them but against God! Such sin has serious consequences.
The deceptiveness of our hearts raises the question, of course, as to how we know when our “good” acts are actually all about us, and thus really acts of cosmic treason. In one sense, of course, all our actions, even our very best ones, are tainted with the poison of self-love. Our motives are always at least somewhat mixed. But it often becomes particularly evident what is driving us when our goals are frustrated. If I am primarily focused on serving God and things don’t work out, then I may be disappointed, but I won’t be devastated. God is sovereign over that failure too, and he gets to decide how things turn out. But if my eyes are fixed on my idols and I fail, then my idol will curse me and make me miserable, angry, anxious, and depressed. When you counsel people and they don’t listen or you preach and no one responds or you do something exceptionally kind for your spouse or your family and they don’t even notice—that is when your motivation is revealed. If your goal is pleasing your idols, you will not merely be disappointed but devastated in these situations. You may respond with anger or a fit of sulking, either toward God or those people whom you think got in the way of your plans. You may sink into depression or despair, which is sometimes another form of anger. Your response to your good deeds being ignored exposes your heart.
This article is adapted from Turning the World Upside Down: Lessons for the Church from Acts 1–8 by Iain M. Duguid.
Related Articles
Why We Must Face Our Sinful Selves
We cannot fully comprehend the horror of our spiritual condition, and our spiritual condition is the reason why. Our sin prevents us from seeing the scope and depth of our sin.
Why Is the Setting of Genesis 3 So Important to the Storyline of the Bible?
We are all born outside of Eden. In the garden, we are entering a world that is before the fall, and then we're watching an unfolding event.
Why Would God Love Me When He Knows How Sinful I Am?
Why would God ever love me, knowing how sinful I am? Well, of course, that’s what makes the love of God so astounding
The Hope of the Resurrection That Is Found in the Old Testament
Where does the concept of resurrection come from? Why is it necessary for Jesus to be raised? It’s because it’s already predicted in the Old Testament.
