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Acts is a narrative; the events occur in chronological order. However, this week I want to discuss the text "topically," which means we’ll skip around. As promised last week, we begin with verses relating to the economic system:

During my "formative years," I often heard this "mantra" from Christian leaders: "If we were really following the teachings of Jesus, we would never go to war, and we would support communism." The 60's witnessed the beginnings of political correctness and "spin," as both secular and religious "elite" preached America was "bad" and communism was "good"; LBJ was a murderous Satan, and Ho Chi Minh was a latter day Jesus Christ. History shows nothing could be further from the truth. This was obvious even in the 60’s . . . but anyone with the courage to rise above such political correctness was usually hit in the head with a "God is Love" sign.

Communism is passe today . . . but let’s still compare it with Christianity. First, the economic system. The idea of Christians’ holding possessions in common is mentioned in scripture only shortly after Jesus ascended to heaven, and only with regard to the Jerusalem church. What was special about this time and place? The believers had seen Jesus ascend to heaven, they had heard His promise to return, and they expected Him to return soon. Although Jesus had told them not to expect an immediate return—remember the parable of the 10 virgins? (Matt 25)—they convinced themselves otherwise.

If I were absolutely certain Jesus would return momentarily, I would probably behave differently than I do today . I wouldn't be concerned about the stock market or my IRA. Questions about Social Security and health insurance would not cross my mind. And that, apparently, was the way the Jerusalem church felt in Acts 2-5.

But days became weeks and months and years, and Jesus didn’t return. Today after almost 2000 years, our prayer is that Jesus will return within our lifetime, but our expectation is that He will not . . . because the probability is less than 5%. Therefore, although we want to be sure we are spiritually ready if Jesus comes tomorrow, we also want to be good stewards of our financial resources just in case He doesn't come.

Christians are taught to trust God to provide what we need. But as Jesus said when He was tempted by Satan: "Trusting God doesn’t mean doing something stupid like jumping off a tall building" (Matt 4:6-7). I think God wants us to be good stewards of our resources so we can help the poor . . . I don’t think He wants us to waste our resources and bankrupt ourselves so we become literally dependent upon God for our needs—which is actually dependency on the charity of others.

But that seems to be what happened with the church in Jerusalem. As we continue to study Acts, we learn the Jerusalem church became poverty-stricken, and had to rely on the charity of other churches. For example, on Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem, he carried a collection for the church (Ro 15:25-29). Did the Jerusalem church become poor because of bad stewardship in the beginning . . . foolishly encouraging members to sell capital assets to finance day-to-day expenses? The Bible doesn't say. But we all know European communism fell because it was not a viable economic system . . .

And the economic system is the only similarity between the early Jerusalem church and communism; everything else is radically different. Sharing of goods among believers in the church was voluntary; but by contrast communists confiscated private property. Furthermore, one of the last communist dictators, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, vividly illustrates that confiscated property usually ended up in the hands of Communist Party officials rather than the common people.

Which brings us back to those misguided church leaders of the 60’s. The "mantra" of their intellectual offspring today is to push for more government "social programs" . . . often as a substitute for Christian charity. But government welfare is financed by taxation, which is not voluntary . . . and it’s becoming obvious in the 21^st century that local Christian charity directly helps the poor, whereas government programs have huge administrative overhead expenses. Do we have things backwards? Should the government be encouraging more Christian charity rather than more government welfare?

Lastly, communism denies the existence of God, whereas Christianity is based on God. And that's why I wanted to start this presentation with this topic. Because although for seventy years—more than two generations—communist governments taught there is no God and did their best to discourage religion in any form, God was still in the hearts of the people when European communism fell a decade ago. The established orthodox and catholic churches may have become moribund relics, but there was a healthy—though persecuted—underground church . . . as there is in China today.

That brings us to the apostles’ prayer is Acts 4:23-31 . . . because the survival of the church through more than two generations of communist persecution is one of the best illustrations of the continuing truth of the apostles’ prayer.

To review the background for that prayer: Peter has performed an exceptionally difficult miracle using the power of Jesus’ name, and this leads 2000 more Jews in Jerusalem to become believers. The Jewish religious leaders in the Sanhedrin can’t deny the miracle, but—for political reasons—they can’t accept Jesus’ name as the power behind it. So they try to intimidate the apostles into silence. They put Peter and John into jail . . . then bring them to court and threaten them with dire consequences if they continue to preach in Jesus’ name. But Peter and John defy the Sanhedrin . . . saying they must obey God instead. The Sanhedrin doesn’t know what to do. It’s inconceivable that rank-and-file Jews of the peasant class—whose only learning is from ordinary synagogue schools—would talk back to Judaism’s intellectual elite . . . and though the Sanhedrin know Joel’s prophesy and the story of Pentecost, they can’t accept empowerment by the Holy Spirit of Jesus’ followers. So, the Sanhedrin makes some more threats, and releases them.

When Peter and John return to where the believers are staying, we might imagine a 1^st century version of "high fives." But Peter and John must be both shocked and awed by the power the Holy Spirit has given them. It’s as if a Catholic layperson from Northern Kentucky had defied the pope . . . or if you Methodists had told off the bishop. The feeling must be overwhelming.

But they clearly understand their power came not from themselves, but from the Holy Spirit within them. They realize all praise and glory is due to God. So they pray. Let’s review some of the main points of their prayer.

First, they reference messianic prophesy . . . as is consistent with the post-resurrection teachings of Jesus and with Peter’s speeches to believers and prospective believers as recorded in Acts so far. They quote Psalm 2, in which David says:

This psalm is prophesy of Jesus the Messiah. Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin plotted to get rid of God’s Messiah by murdering Him . . . these rulers thought they had defeated God, but they were really carrying out God’s plan for His ultimate victory over evil. They were making it possible for Jesus the Messiah to be enthroned in heaven . . . and other evil rulers like them had best be forewarned. I suspect God also laughed when godless European communism fell.

The apostles have a keen appreciation of the fact that God—not man—is in charge of history. And as the apostles conclude the prayer, they say this about what has just happened at the Sanhedrin:

In other words: "God, please give us the power to keep on truckin’ in Jesus name."

And after this prayer—as if a sign from heaven—the place where they were meeting was shaken. Let me note that the Dead Sea and the Jordan River are on a fault line, and the area is prone to earthquakes. Hence it would not be unreasonable to suggest there was a tremor of the earth at this time and place. But I find nothing wrong with offering a scientific explanation for this phenomenon; it still occurred because of the power of God.

And, sure enough, God answered their prayer . . . giving them the power they requested. Reading from Acts 5:

This is the most awesome healing power ever recorded: people are healed merely when Peter’s shadow falls on them . . . due to their faith, I’m sure. This is a power very close to that of Jesus, which goes to show just how much power the Holy Spirit can endow us with. And this great power brought great prestige to the believers (Acts 5:13)

But this, unfortunately, may have been the high water mark of the faith of the Jerusalem church. As with other human institutions, such a near-perfect situation didn’t last; it was quickly undermined from within and without.

The story of Ananias and Sapphira illustrates the problem from within. Barnabas sold a field and gave the money to the church. Ananias and Sapphira sold property, and gave half the money to the church . . . but they lied and said they gave the whole amount.

Their death was not because they kept half the money, but because they lied. One of the questions asks us to speculate about the story behind the story of Ananias and Sapphira. We can only speculate . . . if they recognized the economic stupidity of selling capital assets to pay for day-to-day expenses, they were right. But that’s not the point. The point is they should have offered this counsel to the church, rather than pretending to "follow the crowd" . . . and thus Ananias and Sapphira became the first recorded self-righteous hypocrites in the Christian church. Unfortunately, they weren’t the last!

And that, I believe, is the point of this story. To those who trust and follow God, He can bring great power to heal and do other wonderful things . . . but He can bring great calamity to those who do not—and especially to those who claim to trust and follow Him . . . but don’t . . . like Ananias and Sapphira. That’s why this story brought fear to both believers and non-believers: everyone wanted to be like the believers because of their power, but Ananias and Sapphira taught them not try to "fake" a conversion.

And much as I hate to say it, today’s church is filled with self-righteous hypocrites . . . for which the lesson of Ananias and Sapphira ought to be a warning: that even if they aren’t struck dead today, this is the fate God has in store for them on the day of judgement.

Looking toward next week . . . more problems from within the Jerusalem church quickly became apparent. Although Acts 4 says "all the believers were one in heart and mind" (Acts 4:32) and "there were no needy persons among them" (Acts 4:34), the faulty economic system quickly fell apart. Next week we will learn there was favoritism in distributing food . . . which surely is a symptom of the fact that the believers are no longer "one in heart and mind."

And as for the problems from without . . . we will also see next week that the believers’ greatly enhanced power and influence evokes similarly enhanced jealousy on the part of the Jewish religious leaders. The apostles are again thrown into prison and hauled before the Sanhedrin . . . and this time the situation is much worse than the victory being celebrated in today’s lesson. But we will also encounter Gamaliel—the teacher of Paul—and read perhaps the wisest, most Godly advice from a Pharisee ever recorded in the New Testament.