Acts 5
A couple who lies to the apostles about the price of a field both drop dead on the spot; then the apostles are arrested again, freed by an angel overnight, and found teaching in the temple at dawn.
Summary
Ananias and his wife Sapphira sell a piece of property and bring part of the proceeds to the apostles, but pretend to bring all of it. Peter confronts Ananias: why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? The land was yours; the money was yours to do with as you wished. You have not lied to men but to God. Ananias falls down and dies. Three hours later, Sapphira comes in, not knowing what has happened. Peter asks whether she sold the land for such-and-such a price. She confirms it. He tells her the men who buried her husband are at the door; they will carry her out too. She falls down and dies. Great fear comes upon the whole church and upon all who heard. The passage establishes the Spirit's presence in the community as a reality that cannot be deceived.
The apostles perform many signs and wonders in Solomon's Portico, and the community grows. People carry the sick into the streets so that Peter's shadow might fall on them; the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits are all healed. The high priest and the Sadducees are filled with jealousy and arrest the apostles. That night an angel opens the prison doors and tells them to go and stand in the temple and speak the words of this life. At dawn the council sends for the prisoners and discovers the cells empty and the apostles already teaching. They are brought before the Sanhedrin again. We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, says the high priest. Peter answers: we must obey God rather than men. The council wants to kill them. The Pharisee Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honour by all the people, urges restraint: if this movement is of human origin it will come to nothing, but if it is of God you cannot stop it and you may find yourselves fighting against God. They take his advice, flog the apostles, command them to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, and release them. The apostles leave rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name.
- Acts 1Chapter 1 is a prologue and a hinge.
- Acts 2Pentecost is the structural and theological engine of the whole book.
- Acts 3Chapter 3 is the first miracle narrative in Acts, and its structure follows a pattern the book will repeat: the sign, the crowd, the sermon, and the opposition (which comes in chapter 4).
- Acts 4Chapter 4 is the first formal opposition scene in Acts, and it establishes a pattern: arrest, interrogation, the apostles' refusal, release, prayer, and the Spirit's confirmation.
- Acts 5Chapter 5 is one of the most dramatically concentrated in the book.
- Acts 6Chapter 6 is transitional but efficient.
- Acts 7Chapter 7 is the theological and dramatic climax of the Jerusalem section.
- Acts 8Chapter 8 is the first chapter of the middle section — Judea and Samaria — and it works by juxtaposition.
- Acts 9Chapter 9 contains the first telling of Paul's conversion (the other two are in chapters 22 and 26), and it is worth reading all three consecutively to see how Luke shapes each one for its audience.
- Acts 10Chapter 10 is the structural pivot of the first half of Acts and one of the most carefully constructed chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 11Chapter 11 has two movements.
- Acts 12Chapter 12 is the last major Peter chapter in Acts, and it works as a deliberate counterpoint to the Herod material.
- Acts 13Chapter 13 is the beginning of the long Pauline section, and it opens with a scene worth pausing over: the Spirit speaks during a worship service in Antioch — while they are worshipping and fasting — and sets Barnabas and Saul apart for a specific but unnamed work.
- Acts 14Chapter 14 completes the first missionary journey and its most memorable episode is the Lystra scene (verses 8-20).
- Acts 15Chapter 15 is the structural centre of Acts and one of the most important chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 16Chapter 16 is one of the richest in Acts.
- Acts 17Chapter 17 covers three cities and demonstrates the range of Paul's rhetorical repertoire.
- Acts 18Chapter 18 is relatively measured in tone after the drama of chapter 17.
- Acts 19Chapter 19 is the longest account of Paul's settled ministry in any city and falls into two parts.
- Acts 20Chapter 20 is the most elegiac in Acts.
- Acts 21Chapter 21 is the beginning of the long arrest sequence that occupies the rest of the book.
- Acts 22Chapter 22 is the second telling of Paul's conversion (the first is in chapter 9, the third in chapter 26).
- Acts 23Chapter 23 is structurally a thriller: the Sanhedrin hearing (verses 1-10), the night vision in the barracks (verse 11), the assassination plot (verses 12-22), and the extraordinary military escort to Caesarea (verses 23-35).
- Acts 24Chapter 24 is the first of three formal hearings in Acts — before Felix (24), before Festus (25), and before Agrippa (26) — and it establishes the pattern the others follow: Jewish accusation, Paul's defence, Roman incomprehension of the internal religious question, and a procedurally inconclusive result.
- Acts 25Chapter 25 is a pivot chapter.
- Acts 26Chapter 26 is the third and final telling of Paul's conversion (compare chapters 9 and 22) and the most rhetorically elaborate.
- Acts 27Chapter 27 is one of the most detailed sea narratives in ancient literature and is written in the first person plural (the we-passage resumes at verse 1), which gives it its immediacy.
- Acts 28Chapter 28 is the ending the book has been building toward, and it rewards slow reading.