Join in as Michael, Tim, Sam and J.J. discuss what went down with Ananias and Sapphira.
Join in as Michael, Tim, Sam and J.J. discuss what went down with Ananias and Sapphira.
9 replies to "What Happened to Ananias and Sapphira?"
To me the most interesting thing about the verse is one you all downplayed: the fact that Peter was the instrumentality of judgment, if not in the case of Ananias, certainly in that of Sepphira. In the old testament passages in question (e.g., Aaron’s sons and strange fire), God directly judged. In the aftermath of the battle of Ai, Joshua didn’t even know what was going on. Here I think we pretty obviously see Peter pronouncing a sentence upon at least Sapphira. Two things:
1. I find Peter’s apparent lack of mercy strange in light of the Jesus’ mercy on time. After all, Peter is the one who publicly denied Jesus three times not that long ago!
2. Secondly, though I’m not a Catholic, doesn’t this episode lend additional biblical credence to the Catholic concept of Petrine authority? He is here, in a sense, standing in the place of Jesus as judge.
One takeaway I would say is the reinforcement of the seriousness of sin. Few of us today frankly consider the stray sin all that big a deal. But clearly the New Testament church took sin extremely seriously. Much more seriously than most of us do.
Hey, did you really censor Sapphiras breasts on that picture? That’s hilarious!
Yes. I did. People get easily offended so I figured it was best to err on the side of caution. Odd though it didn’t occur to me anyone would be annoyed that they were blurred out.
Can’t win for losing. 😀
I didn’t even know they were missing…
Hey, Carrie! I’m not annoyed at all. Just thought it was funny. I understand your reasoning though. It’s better to remove “distractions”, so people keep on topic.
Hey there Arni,
I didn’t mean annoyed … I just meant “shocked” or put off. But I’m glad to know you weren’t any of those things.
It is funny I agree. Funny ha-ha and funny ironic because most great works of art that contain nudity were typically commissioned by the church and often times painted by Christians.
Because the culture in the church today can be different, I always try to be mindful of that.
You should have seen the Nephilim picture before I edited that for the podcast related to that subject.
Let’s just say I had a lot of cropping to do!
I see what they did as a sin against the Church as an institution, against the Body of Christ a a whole, and thus they were removed from it, not only as judgement, but as an example to others NOT to follow!
Peter used the word, “conspired”, which constitutes a deliberate and corporate plot to deceive the Church and leadership for petty personal gain. On the surface it does not appear to call for the death penalty, but we do not see the spiritual reality of what they did, nor what influence might have remained had they been allowed to live.
These guys are talking about not saying whats not in scripture and yet they clearly said God killed them both and scripture does not say that. We all know what it looks like. But I do not believe that God killed either. No where does it say God killed them.
“Could God have prevented them from doing somthing worse by killing them” Really you guys think that shallow? Lokk at the state of the church today. 41000 denominations and none agreeing with another. How small is anninias and sapperia next to that. One God one truth,one church. First mistake these guys are making is they dont know the difference between the OT and NT Covanant.