Change

There are two stories in the Bible that are particularly puzzling. The story of Moses in Numbers 20, and the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:4 describe actions that seem insignificant compared to their consequences.

Not long before entering the Promised Land Moses was told by God to carry his staff and to speak to a rock and that God would then send water from the rock. Instead, Moses struck the rock with his staff (as he had been instructed in a similar situation almost forty years earlier), and said “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water from the rock?” As a consequence God banned Moses from ever entering the Promised Land, the very object of his life’s work.

Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land and brought part of the proceeds to Peter for the work of the church. Both came to Peter separately and affirmed that their gift was the whole sum of the sale, and both died at the scene.

The God of the Old Testament had not changed in the New Testament, but something had changed. For the first time ever, Moses took credit for bringing water from the rock, for doing something the he knew to be God’s doing. If Israel was to survive the people had to know their God and His care and response to them. The forty years in the wilderness were threatened by Moses’ action at the moment of finding water for his people. It was time for a new leader, Joshua, to take the people into the Promised Land.

Ananias and Sapphira entirely missed the meaning of the Christian message. They failed to understand that there was no rule at all compelling them to give the price of their land to the church; instead a Spirit invited them to be a part of the body of Christ It was the Holy Spirit Himself. Peter said, “You have not lied just to human beings, but to God.” (Acts 5:4) Ananias and Sapphira did not recognize the Holy Spirit at work in “ordinary” people like Peter and the other believers. Since the Holy Spirit had been given following Jesus’ resurrection, only a relative few perceived that what Jesus had shared with God was now available to all believers. This knowledge was priceless and a came changer for life on earth. In the fact that the Holy Spirit of God cannot be fooled lies much of the hope of all humanity.

Love in Him,

Prue