Stewardship of Resources · Stewardship Faith-Spiritual Growth
That Is the Price: Acts 4 and 5 on Barnabas, Ananias and the Lie Inside a Gift
Qunetin Robinson
The early church was at its best when Ananias and Sapphira laid their gift at the apostles' feet. Here is what Acts 4 and 5 teach about free generosity, the lie inside a gift, and why God cares more about truth than about the amount.
The Hardest Page in Acts
Most of us like the Book of Acts until we reach the fifth chapter. The church is new. The Spirit has come. Thousands have believed, nobody around the table is going hungry, and people are selling land to care for one another. Then a husband and wife bring a gift to the apostles, and within three hours both of them are dead.
Preachers tend to move quickly past this page, but its hard questions deserve an honest treatment. Is God that severe with people who hold something back? Does He strike down givers who keep a portion? If He does, how would any of us have survived last Sunday?
The Question Under the Story
Luke sets two stories side by side on purpose. In one, a man named Barnabas sells a field and lays the money at the apostles' feet. In the other, a man named Ananias sells a piece of property and lays money at the same feet. From across the room the two gifts look nearly the same. Both men have sold land, and both have walked down the same aisle.
The difference between them does not lie in the amount. Peter himself says so, and we will get to his words. The difference is that one of these gifts was true.
So the question under this story is one every giver has to face, and it reaches far past the offering plate. When people look at your generosity, are they seeing what is actually there?
Lesson One: No One Claimed It
Start with what the church looked like before anything went wrong, because Luke wants you to feel the height before the fall. "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had." (Acts 4:32, NIV).
Notice the order of that verse. The heart comes first and the possessions follow. Nobody passed a rule. Their hands opened because something had already happened inside them.
Luke tells us what that something was. "With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need." (Acts 4:33-35, NIV).
The engine here is the resurrection. People who believe Jesus walked out of a tomb hold a field differently. If death has lost, the land was never their security in the first place. The sharing came from grace at work, and Luke says so plainly.
Pay attention to the words from time to time. This was not a law that everyone must sell everything. People still had homes, and the church still met in them. A need would arise, and someone would look at what they owned and decide. The same spirit shows up earlier, in Acts 2:44-45.
That matters for the rest of the story. What we are seeing is freedom. No one was forced to sell, and no one was keeping score. A community like this runs on trust, and that is the very thing that makes it so easy to wound.
Lesson Two: The Son of Encouragement
Out of the crowd of givers, Luke names one. "Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means 'son of encouragement'), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet." (Acts 4:36-37, NIV).
There is no speech and no price. Luke reports a man, a field, and the place he set the money down.
He was a Levite, from the tribe told it would hold no inheritance in the land (Numbers 18:20), and yet he owned a field. He let it go.
Look at where he laid it. Money placed at someone's feet is money you have stopped managing. He did not attach conditions or ask for a seat on the committee. He handed it over and let others decide where it went.
Look also at his name. His parents called him Joseph. The apostles started calling him something else because of what it was like to be around him. People left his company stronger. A nickname like that is earned over time, in many small conversations.
He kept living up to it. When the believers in Jerusalem were afraid of Saul, it was Barnabas who vouched for him (Acts 9:27).
So when Barnabas sold that field, the gift matched the man. That is integrity in the plainest sense of the word: the outside and the inside are one piece.
A church that loves a Barnabas will talk about him, and it should. Someone in the room was listening to that talk, and he wanted some of it for himself.
Lesson Three: Part of the Money
Luke turns the page with one small word. "Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property." (Acts 5:1, NIV).
The word also is doing a great deal of work. It places this couple directly behind Barnabas. They saw what he did and how it was received. They sold land too.
"With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet." (Acts 5:2, NIV).
Notice how much of that is good. A real sum of money went to feed hungry people. If you only had the church's records, you would thank God for this couple.
But the phrase kept back is a loaded one. The Greek translators of the Old Testament used the same word for Achan in Joshua 7:1, and Paul uses it for servants pilfering from their masters in Titus 2:10. Achan hid plunder under a tent. Ananias hid something harder to see. He kept a share of the money and let the church believe it had the whole.
Then there is the phrase with his wife's full knowledge. This was not a moment of panic at the front of the room. Somewhere in their house, two people talked it through and agreed on what would be said if anyone asked. A marriage is one of the strongest alliances God ever designed, and here it has been turned into a small conspiracy.
They wanted to be known for a sacrifice they had not made. They wanted Barnabas's reputation at a discount. It is a very human thing to want, and most of us have priced that same item ourselves.
Lesson Four: It Was Yours to Keep
Peter's words are the key to the entire passage. "Then Peter said, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?'" (Acts 5:3, NIV).
Then he says what should settle the question forever. "'Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.'" (Acts 5:4, NIV).
The land was his. The money was his. He could have kept the field. He could have given half and said, "We are giving half." Nobody in that church would have blamed him, and neither would God.
This is one of the clearest statements in the New Testament that generosity is free. Anyone who uses this passage to squeeze money out of people has read it backward. Paul says the same thing about the gifts in Corinth (2 Corinthians 9:7).
So Ananias did not die for keeping the money. The sin was the lie, told with a gift for a prop. He put on a performance of total surrender in front of a community that trusted him, and Peter says the audience for that performance was God.
Lying to the Holy Spirit is called lying to God, which tells us who the Spirit is. And notice where the lie came from. Peter says Satan filled the heart. The enemy did not need to stop the church from giving. He only needed to turn one gift into a costume.
Lesson Five: Great Fear
Now we have to read what happened, and we should not hurry. "When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened." (Acts 5:5, NIV).
Young men carried him out and buried him. Then comes one of the most painful moments in the Bible. "About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, 'Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?' 'Yes,' she said, 'that is the price.'" (Acts 5:7-8, NIV).
Peter gave her a door. She could have told the truth, and she had her own choice to make, apart from her husband. She gave the rehearsed answer.
"Peter said to her, 'How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.'" (Acts 5:9, NIV).
"At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband." (Acts 5:10, NIV).
She fell at the same feet where the money had been laid.
What are we to make of this? Three honest things. First, Scripture does not tell us this is how God treats every lie. Most of us are proof that it is not. Second, God has sometimes acted with great severity at the start of something new, as with Nadab and Abihu at the tabernacle (Leviticus 10:1-2) and Achan at the edge of the land. The church was new. Third, the text does not tell us where this couple stands before God, and we should not claim to know.
"Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events." (Acts 5:11, NIV).
The church is a holy place, and God does not leave it to decay from the inside. If this page frightens you, let it send you toward His mercy.
Lesson Six: Giving in the Light
Very few of us will ever announce the sale of a field. The same temptation comes in smaller sizes. We let people think we tithe. We mention a sacrifice in passing and watch for the reaction.
Jesus had already named the cure. "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matthew 6:3-4, NIV).
This does not mean every gift must be hidden. Barnabas's gift was known, and Luke recorded it. What matters is who the gift is for. A gift for the audience cannot survive silence, and that is a useful test. If no one ever learned what you gave, would you still be glad you gave it?
Then close the distance between what is true and what people think. Ananias lived in that gap, and anyone who has lived there knows the cost. You have to remember your version. You feel a little afraid of honest people. A reputation larger than your life is a debt, and the interest comes due every day.
Scripture tells us where this ends. "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13, NIV).
For a person pretending, that verse is a threat. For a person who has told the truth, it is a kind of rest. God already knows what the land brought. You can give what you give, keep what you keep, say so, and go home and sleep.
For Business Leaders: Tell the Real Number
The temptation of Ananias is alive in every company that wants credit it has not earned. A report says more than the operations support. A forecast goes to the board rounded toward what they want to hear.
Most of these are not crimes. They are small distances between the story and the facts, and a leader sets the size of that distance for everyone below him.
"The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy." (Proverbs 12:22, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Choose one public claim your business makes about itself, whether in marketing, in a pitch deck or on a recruiting page. Check it against the facts this week. If it says more than the truth, change the words, even if the smaller version is less impressive.
For Community Leaders: Report What Actually Came In
Churches and nonprofits run on trust, and that makes their numbers sacred. Attendance gets rounded up. Stories of changed lives get polished. Everyone means well, and everyone feels the pressure to show growth.
A community that cannot tell the truth about small things will soon lose the right to be believed about large ones. Make it safe for your people to bring you a disappointing report.
"Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body." (Ephesians 4:25, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Look at the last report you gave your board, your donors or your congregation. Find one figure you shaded, however slightly, and correct it in the next report. Say that you are correcting it.
For Home Leaders: One in Heart About the Money
Sapphira knew what was true, and she went along. Couples can drift into this without much planning: the purchase kept quiet, the account nobody mentions, the story you both tell your parents.
Unity in a home is a great gift, but a couple can be united in the wrong thing. Real oneness has no agreed story for the outside world and no secrets on the inside.
"How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Sit down together this week with every account, debt and regular gift on the table. Say out loud anything your spouse does not know. If you are single, do this with a trusted friend or mentor. Pray together when you finish.
For the Everyday Believer: The Secret Place
All of us have a public version, the one people at church believe in. All of us have the person who gets into the car afterward.
God has always been after that second person. David learned this the hard way, and he prayed about it after his worst failure.
"Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place." (Psalm 51:6, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Name one thing people believe about you that is not quite true. It may be how much you pray, how much you give or how well you are doing. Tell one trusted person the real version before this week ends.
Walking in the Light
The gospel of this passage is easy to miss among the funerals. Everything Ananias tried to buy was already on offer for free. He wanted standing in that community, and he already had it. He did not have to be Barnabas. He could have walked up with the portion he meant to give, told the truth about it, and been received.
The cross means our standing is not something we earn or perform. Our sin has been paid for at a price none of us could have brought. So the people of God can afford to be honest.
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7, NIV).
Give what you want to give. Keep what you want to keep. Just tell the truth about the price.
Questions for Reflection
- Where is the distance between what people think of me and what is true?
- Have I ever given in order to be seen? What was I hoping to receive?
- Do I treat generosity as free, or have I felt pressured, or pressured others?
- Is there anything my spouse or closest friend and I have agreed not to say?
- If no one ever learned what I gave, would I still be glad I gave it?
- What would it cost me to tell the truth this week, and what would it free me from?
Closing Prayer
Father, you see everything. You know what the land brought. You know what I gave and what I wanted people to think I gave. Forgive me for the times I have used good works as a costume. Thank you that Jesus has already paid what I could never pay, and that I do not need to buy my place among your people. Fill me with your Spirit, and leave no room in my heart for pretending. Make my home a place of truth. Make my gifts free and glad, whatever their size. Make me a person who strengthens others, as Barnabas did. Keep me walking in the light. In Jesus' name, Amen.
The Lot on Cedar Avenue
The building campaign at Grace Fellowship had stalled at sixty percent when Phil Navarro stood up at the Sunday night meeting.
Phil owned three tire shops and had been a deacon for eleven years. He held up a hand, and the room went quiet.
"Most of you know Carla and I had that corner lot on Cedar Avenue," he said. "My dad bought it in 1974. We closed on the sale Friday. It brought two hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Every dollar of it is going to the new hall. All of it."
People stood. An old man near the front was crying. By the end of the month the campaign had passed its goal, and the elders voted to name the fellowship room the Navarro Hall.
The lot had brought four hundred and ten thousand.
There was a cabin on the lake that Carla had wanted for twenty years. They had talked it over at the kitchen table. A hundred and fifty thousand was theirs, after all, and nobody was asking for it. And two hundred and sixty thousand was a very large gift. It was the sentence that was the trouble, and Phil had decided on the sentence in the car.
Greta Lindqvist was eighty-three, and she had worked the front desk at the county recorder's office for thirty-eight years. She taught the second graders now, and she still read the property transfers in the Thursday paper the way other people read the box scores.
She came by the main shop on a Tuesday in the fall and sat down in the customer chair by the coffee machine. She had the plaque proof from the sign company in her purse. She put it on the counter and did not take her eyes off it.
"They asked me to check the spelling," she said.
"Looks right," said Phil.
"It's a nice thing, that lot." She folded her hands. "Four hundred and ten is a good price for that corner."
The compressor kicked on in the bay behind him. He listened to it run for a while.
"Have you told anybody?"
"No. It isn't mine to tell." She looked up at him then. "Phil, nobody asked you for that lot. Your father bought it. You could have kept the whole thing, and I would have shaken your hand in the foyer the same as always. You could have given ten dollars." She put the proof back in her purse. "I just came to ask if the spelling was right."
She left her coffee on the counter.
He did not sleep much that month. Carla stopped talking about the cabin. Every Sunday people thanked him in the hallway, and he found he had started leaving by the side door. The hall was framed by Christmas. It was roofed by March. In May the pastor asked him to say a few words at the dedication.
He wrote out a few words. He and Carla read them at the kitchen table, the same table, and she put her hand over his and then she took it away and wiped her eyes.
"Both of us," she said. "I'll stand up there too."
The new room smelled of paint and floor wax. Two hundred people sat in folding chairs. Phil stood at the microphone with Carla beside him and the plaque leaning against the wall under a cloth.
"That lot sold for four hundred and ten thousand," he said. "I told you two sixty was all of it. We kept the rest, and we had every right to, and then I stood up and lied to you about it. I lied to God in His own house. I would like the name left off this room."
Nobody stood this time. Nobody seemed to know where to look. The old man near the front had his hand over his mouth.
Afterward most people found a reason to get to their cars. The pastor would need a long talk with him, and so would the elders, and some of those shops' customers would not be back. The room emptied until there was a stacked row of chairs and one small woman with a cane.
Greta worked her way across the new floor and stopped in front of him. She looked at the bare spot on the wall, and then she held out her hand.
"Phil," she said. "It's good to finally meet you."
Go Deeper
Ready to put this teaching into practice? Here and Now is a guided workbook drawn from Luke 19, Nehemiah 5 and Acts 4 and 5. Work through four movements at your own pace and finish with one page you build for yourself: Your Restitution List.
The early church was at its best when Ananias and Sapphira laid their gift at the apostles' feet. Here is what Acts 4 and 5 teach about free generosity, the lie inside a gift, and why God cares more about truth than about the amount.
The Hardest Page in Acts
Most of us like the Book of Acts until we reach the fifth chapter. The church is new. The Spirit has come. Thousands have believed, nobody around the table is going hungry, and people are selling land to care for one another. Then a husband and wife bring a gift to the apostles, and within three hours both of them are dead.
Preachers tend to move quickly past this page, but its hard questions deserve an honest treatment. Is God that severe with people who hold something back? Does He strike down givers who keep a portion? If He does, how would any of us have survived last Sunday?
The Question Under the Story
Luke sets two stories side by side on purpose. In one, a man named Barnabas sells a field and lays the money at the apostles' feet. In the other, a man named Ananias sells a piece of property and lays money at the same feet. From across the room the two gifts look nearly the same. Both men have sold land, and both have walked down the same aisle.
The difference between them does not lie in the amount. Peter himself says so, and we will get to his words. The difference is that one of these gifts was true.
So the question under this story is one every giver has to face, and it reaches far past the offering plate. When people look at your generosity, are they seeing what is actually there?
Lesson One: No One Claimed It
Start with what the church looked like before anything went wrong, because Luke wants you to feel the height before the fall. "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had." (Acts 4:32, NIV).
Notice the order of that verse. The heart comes first and the possessions follow. Nobody passed a rule. Their hands opened because something had already happened inside them.
Luke tells us what that something was. "With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need." (Acts 4:33-35, NIV).
The engine here is the resurrection. People who believe Jesus walked out of a tomb hold a field differently. If death has lost, the land was never their security in the first place. The sharing came from grace at work, and Luke says so plainly.
Pay attention to the words from time to time. This was not a law that everyone must sell everything. People still had homes, and the church still met in them. A need would arise, and someone would look at what they owned and decide. The same spirit shows up earlier, in Acts 2:44-45.
That matters for the rest of the story. What we are seeing is freedom. No one was forced to sell, and no one was keeping score. A community like this runs on trust, and that is the very thing that makes it so easy to wound.
Lesson Two: The Son of Encouragement
Out of the crowd of givers, Luke names one. "Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means 'son of encouragement'), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet." (Acts 4:36-37, NIV).
There is no speech and no price. Luke reports a man, a field, and the place he set the money down.
He was a Levite, from the tribe told it would hold no inheritance in the land (Numbers 18:20), and yet he owned a field. He let it go.
Look at where he laid it. Money placed at someone's feet is money you have stopped managing. He did not attach conditions or ask for a seat on the committee. He handed it over and let others decide where it went.
Look also at his name. His parents called him Joseph. The apostles started calling him something else because of what it was like to be around him. People left his company stronger. A nickname like that is earned over time, in many small conversations.
He kept living up to it. When the believers in Jerusalem were afraid of Saul, it was Barnabas who vouched for him (Acts 9:27).
So when Barnabas sold that field, the gift matched the man. That is integrity in the plainest sense of the word: the outside and the inside are one piece.
A church that loves a Barnabas will talk about him, and it should. Someone in the room was listening to that talk, and he wanted some of it for himself.
Lesson Three: Part of the Money
Luke turns the page with one small word. "Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property." (Acts 5:1, NIV).
The word also is doing a great deal of work. It places this couple directly behind Barnabas. They saw what he did and how it was received. They sold land too.
"With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet." (Acts 5:2, NIV).
Notice how much of that is good. A real sum of money went to feed hungry people. If you only had the church's records, you would thank God for this couple.
But the phrase kept back is a loaded one. The Greek translators of the Old Testament used the same word for Achan in Joshua 7:1, and Paul uses it for servants pilfering from their masters in Titus 2:10. Achan hid plunder under a tent. Ananias hid something harder to see. He kept a share of the money and let the church believe it had the whole.
Then there is the phrase with his wife's full knowledge. This was not a moment of panic at the front of the room. Somewhere in their house, two people talked it through and agreed on what would be said if anyone asked. A marriage is one of the strongest alliances God ever designed, and here it has been turned into a small conspiracy.
They wanted to be known for a sacrifice they had not made. They wanted Barnabas's reputation at a discount. It is a very human thing to want, and most of us have priced that same item ourselves.
Lesson Four: It Was Yours to Keep
Peter's words are the key to the entire passage. "Then Peter said, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?'" (Acts 5:3, NIV).
Then he says what should settle the question forever. "'Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.'" (Acts 5:4, NIV).
The land was his. The money was his. He could have kept the field. He could have given half and said, "We are giving half." Nobody in that church would have blamed him, and neither would God.
This is one of the clearest statements in the New Testament that generosity is free. Anyone who uses this passage to squeeze money out of people has read it backward. Paul says the same thing about the gifts in Corinth (2 Corinthians 9:7).
So Ananias did not die for keeping the money. The sin was the lie, told with a gift for a prop. He put on a performance of total surrender in front of a community that trusted him, and Peter says the audience for that performance was God.
Lying to the Holy Spirit is called lying to God, which tells us who the Spirit is. And notice where the lie came from. Peter says Satan filled the heart. The enemy did not need to stop the church from giving. He only needed to turn one gift into a costume.
Lesson Five: Great Fear
Now we have to read what happened, and we should not hurry. "When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened." (Acts 5:5, NIV).
Young men carried him out and buried him. Then comes one of the most painful moments in the Bible. "About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, 'Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?' 'Yes,' she said, 'that is the price.'" (Acts 5:7-8, NIV).
Peter gave her a door. She could have told the truth, and she had her own choice to make, apart from her husband. She gave the rehearsed answer.
"Peter said to her, 'How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.'" (Acts 5:9, NIV).
"At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband." (Acts 5:10, NIV).
She fell at the same feet where the money had been laid.
What are we to make of this? Three honest things. First, Scripture does not tell us this is how God treats every lie. Most of us are proof that it is not. Second, God has sometimes acted with great severity at the start of something new, as with Nadab and Abihu at the tabernacle (Leviticus 10:1-2) and Achan at the edge of the land. The church was new. Third, the text does not tell us where this couple stands before God, and we should not claim to know.
"Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events." (Acts 5:11, NIV).
The church is a holy place, and God does not leave it to decay from the inside. If this page frightens you, let it send you toward His mercy.
Lesson Six: Giving in the Light
Very few of us will ever announce the sale of a field. The same temptation comes in smaller sizes. We let people think we tithe. We mention a sacrifice in passing and watch for the reaction.
Jesus had already named the cure. "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matthew 6:3-4, NIV).
This does not mean every gift must be hidden. Barnabas's gift was known, and Luke recorded it. What matters is who the gift is for. A gift for the audience cannot survive silence, and that is a useful test. If no one ever learned what you gave, would you still be glad you gave it?
Then close the distance between what is true and what people think. Ananias lived in that gap, and anyone who has lived there knows the cost. You have to remember your version. You feel a little afraid of honest people. A reputation larger than your life is a debt, and the interest comes due every day.
Scripture tells us where this ends. "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13, NIV).
For a person pretending, that verse is a threat. For a person who has told the truth, it is a kind of rest. God already knows what the land brought. You can give what you give, keep what you keep, say so, and go home and sleep.
For Business Leaders: Tell the Real Number
The temptation of Ananias is alive in every company that wants credit it has not earned. A report says more than the operations support. A forecast goes to the board rounded toward what they want to hear.
Most of these are not crimes. They are small distances between the story and the facts, and a leader sets the size of that distance for everyone below him.
"The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy." (Proverbs 12:22, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Choose one public claim your business makes about itself, whether in marketing, in a pitch deck or on a recruiting page. Check it against the facts this week. If it says more than the truth, change the words, even if the smaller version is less impressive.
For Community Leaders: Report What Actually Came In
Churches and nonprofits run on trust, and that makes their numbers sacred. Attendance gets rounded up. Stories of changed lives get polished. Everyone means well, and everyone feels the pressure to show growth.
A community that cannot tell the truth about small things will soon lose the right to be believed about large ones. Make it safe for your people to bring you a disappointing report.
"Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body." (Ephesians 4:25, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Look at the last report you gave your board, your donors or your congregation. Find one figure you shaded, however slightly, and correct it in the next report. Say that you are correcting it.
For Home Leaders: One in Heart About the Money
Sapphira knew what was true, and she went along. Couples can drift into this without much planning: the purchase kept quiet, the account nobody mentions, the story you both tell your parents.
Unity in a home is a great gift, but a couple can be united in the wrong thing. Real oneness has no agreed story for the outside world and no secrets on the inside.
"How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Sit down together this week with every account, debt and regular gift on the table. Say out loud anything your spouse does not know. If you are single, do this with a trusted friend or mentor. Pray together when you finish.
For the Everyday Believer: The Secret Place
All of us have a public version, the one people at church believe in. All of us have the person who gets into the car afterward.
God has always been after that second person. David learned this the hard way, and he prayed about it after his worst failure.
"Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place." (Psalm 51:6, NIV).
Your Obedience Step
Name one thing people believe about you that is not quite true. It may be how much you pray, how much you give or how well you are doing. Tell one trusted person the real version before this week ends.
Walking in the Light
The gospel of this passage is easy to miss among the funerals. Everything Ananias tried to buy was already on offer for free. He wanted standing in that community, and he already had it. He did not have to be Barnabas. He could have walked up with the portion he meant to give, told the truth about it, and been received.
The cross means our standing is not something we earn or perform. Our sin has been paid for at a price none of us could have brought. So the people of God can afford to be honest.
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7, NIV).
Give what you want to give. Keep what you want to keep. Just tell the truth about the price.
Questions for Reflection
- Where is the distance between what people think of me and what is true?
- Have I ever given in order to be seen? What was I hoping to receive?
- Do I treat generosity as free, or have I felt pressured, or pressured others?
- Is there anything my spouse or closest friend and I have agreed not to say?
- If no one ever learned what I gave, would I still be glad I gave it?
- What would it cost me to tell the truth this week, and what would it free me from?
Closing Prayer
Father, you see everything. You know what the land brought. You know what I gave and what I wanted people to think I gave. Forgive me for the times I have used good works as a costume. Thank you that Jesus has already paid what I could never pay, and that I do not need to buy my place among your people. Fill me with your Spirit, and leave no room in my heart for pretending. Make my home a place of truth. Make my gifts free and glad, whatever their size. Make me a person who strengthens others, as Barnabas did. Keep me walking in the light. In Jesus' name, Amen.
The Lot on Cedar Avenue
The building campaign at Grace Fellowship had stalled at sixty percent when Phil Navarro stood up at the Sunday night meeting.
Phil owned three tire shops and had been a deacon for eleven years. He held up a hand, and the room went quiet.
"Most of you know Carla and I had that corner lot on Cedar Avenue," he said. "My dad bought it in 1974. We closed on the sale Friday. It brought two hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Every dollar of it is going to the new hall. All of it."
People stood. An old man near the front was crying. By the end of the month the campaign had passed its goal, and the elders voted to name the fellowship room the Navarro Hall.
The lot had brought four hundred and ten thousand.
There was a cabin on the lake that Carla had wanted for twenty years. They had talked it over at the kitchen table. A hundred and fifty thousand was theirs, after all, and nobody was asking for it. And two hundred and sixty thousand was a very large gift. It was the sentence that was the trouble, and Phil had decided on the sentence in the car.
Greta Lindqvist was eighty-three, and she had worked the front desk at the county recorder's office for thirty-eight years. She taught the second graders now, and she still read the property transfers in the Thursday paper the way other people read the box scores.
She came by the main shop on a Tuesday in the fall and sat down in the customer chair by the coffee machine. She had the plaque proof from the sign company in her purse. She put it on the counter and did not take her eyes off it.
"They asked me to check the spelling," she said.
"Looks right," said Phil.
"It's a nice thing, that lot." She folded her hands. "Four hundred and ten is a good price for that corner."
The compressor kicked on in the bay behind him. He listened to it run for a while.
"Have you told anybody?"
"No. It isn't mine to tell." She looked up at him then. "Phil, nobody asked you for that lot. Your father bought it. You could have kept the whole thing, and I would have shaken your hand in the foyer the same as always. You could have given ten dollars." She put the proof back in her purse. "I just came to ask if the spelling was right."
She left her coffee on the counter.
He did not sleep much that month. Carla stopped talking about the cabin. Every Sunday people thanked him in the hallway, and he found he had started leaving by the side door. The hall was framed by Christmas. It was roofed by March. In May the pastor asked him to say a few words at the dedication.
He wrote out a few words. He and Carla read them at the kitchen table, the same table, and she put her hand over his and then she took it away and wiped her eyes.
"Both of us," she said. "I'll stand up there too."
The new room smelled of paint and floor wax. Two hundred people sat in folding chairs. Phil stood at the microphone with Carla beside him and the plaque leaning against the wall under a cloth.
"That lot sold for four hundred and ten thousand," he said. "I told you two sixty was all of it. We kept the rest, and we had every right to, and then I stood up and lied to you about it. I lied to God in His own house. I would like the name left off this room."
Nobody stood this time. Nobody seemed to know where to look. The old man near the front had his hand over his mouth.
Afterward most people found a reason to get to their cars. The pastor would need a long talk with him, and so would the elders, and some of those shops' customers would not be back. The room emptied until there was a stacked row of chairs and one small woman with a cane.
Greta worked her way across the new floor and stopped in front of him. She looked at the bare spot on the wall, and then she held out her hand.
"Phil," she said. "It's good to finally meet you."
Go Deeper
Ready to put this teaching into practice? Here and Now is a guided workbook drawn from Luke 19, Nehemiah 5 and Acts 4 and 5. Work through four movements at your own pace and finish with one page you build for yourself: Your Restitution List.
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