Occasionally there is a Biblical phrase that stays with you, challenging you, teaching you. You ponder it and at some point some things start making sense that heretofore was confusing.
Acts 5:4 (NASB) is such a verse: "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control?"
Ownership. It was yours. You could do with it as you pleased. It was yours. Yours. Mine. You could keep it or give it away. It is your call. The individual can make that decision.
Enter Matthew 20:1-16 (NASB):
1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
2“When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3“And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place;
4and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went.
5“Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing.
6“And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’
7“They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’
8“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’
9“When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.
10“When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
11“When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner,
12saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’
13“But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?
14‘Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.
15‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’
16“So the last shall be first, and the first last.”
From an employee's point this makes no sense. It is NOT fair! You worked hard ALL day in the heat and sun and you get paid no more then the one who works one hour! Not fair! Got to form a union to get some justice here!
But there is that one telltale point in v. 15: ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ The owner can do as he pleases with what he owns.
Oh.
Ananias and Sapphira were not obligated to share with the church any of their money. It was a personal decision to do so. The employer had the right to determine the wage paid - he was kind enough to make this agreement before the men were hired. The employer honored his part but the employees were wanting to renege for what they deemed as unfair. It may have been, but they agreed and the employer had the right to make agreements as he wills.
Practical applications: People own. They can do with it whatever they choose. Their possession were given to them by God. The dispersal of them is between them and God. To God we are accountable. We have no right to envy what is not ours. It belongs to another.
Ananias & Sapphira's sin was they lied. Sapphira did not have to agree with her husband - Peter gave her the option to be honest, but she lied also and suffered the consequences. Important lesson...
"Was it not thy own?"
