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Genuine Hypocrisy

November 11, 2018 Series: Surprised by Scripture

Scripture: Acts 4:32– 5:11

There's a parallel between the story in this passage and the fall of humanity into sin (Genesis 3:1-24), but it's not what you may think.  Aninias and Sapphira are not like Adam and Eve; they're more like the serpent, the disguise that Satan took on when he deceived Adam and Eve into sin.  

The sin of Aninias and Sapphira was not that they held back some of the money they made from selling their land; as Peter pointed out, they could have done whatever they wanted with the money, and were not obligated to give it all to the church.  Their real sin was lying about holding back some of the money.  They wanted to look as generous as Barnabas and the other members of the church, without actually being that generous.  That deception struck at the very heart of the new community of believers.

We are much like Aninias and Sapphira; we often want to look like good Christians without actually being good Christians.  In short, we're hypocrites by nature.  That's why honesty and confession are such important parts of discipleship.  Our God is the God of truth; if we want to serve him, we had better be honest about it.

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