Monday - Acts 5 - Trouble in the Church

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HEREVER God is at work, Satan will attempt an intrusion. And sometimes the intrusion comes from within the church. At the end of Acts 4, we read about a man named Barnabas who sold some property and gave all the proceeds to the church. That was all good. Perhaps it would have been better if nobody had known about it though. There was a couple in the church who evidently saw the attention and admiration that Barnabas had elicited and decided that they could get in on this. So, they too sold a piece of property and gave to the church. But they only pretended to give all the profits to God. They kept back some for themselves. (Of course, they were not obligated to give any of it at all, and in fact, they would have been better off keeping it all. Instead, they lied in order to receive the praise of men).

But their scheme was thwarted. The Holy Ghost would not allow this misuse of His infant church. Both the husband and the wife died at Peter's feet in a miraculous show of God's holy jealousy. One thing is sure, immediately following this incident the rest of the members of the church in Jerusalem were exceedingly careful in their behavior. They feared and respected the apostles even more than they had already. And, many more Jews were saved and added to the church. The church may very well have had upwards of 10,000 in its membership. Not that they were all assembling in one place regularly, but the body of Christ was indeed growing dynamically.