Holding Back What is the Lord’s

Jericho had fallen, and Israel stood at the threshold of life in the promised land. More than a thousand years later, the risen Christ poured out his Spirit, and the church stood at the threshold of its witness to the nations. At both hopeful moments Scripture tells an unsettling story. Achan took what belonged to the Lord (Joshua 7), and Ananias and Sapphira kept back money they presented as a gift to the Lord (Acts 5:1–11). In each case God had just displayed His presence in a dramatic way, and the first recorded sin within the new community was met with severe judgment. Together the two accounts teach that when God dwells among his people in a new way, hidden sin against His holiness is never merely private.

Before Jericho fell, the Lord declared the city devoted to destruction and warned Israel to keep away from the devoted things. The silver, gold, and vessels of bronze and iron were to go into His treasury (Joshua 6:17–19). These instructions applied to that particular conquest. Achan, however, decided that he could keep part of what God had claimed. His later confession traces the path of his sin: he saw a beautiful cloak, silver, and gold; he coveted them; he took them; and he hid them in the earth inside his tent (Joshua 7:20–21). Achan’s hiding place could conceal the objects from his neighbors, but it could not conceal his heart or his actions from the Lord. The consequences reached far beyond Achan’s tent. Israel was defeated at Ai, and thirty-six men died (Joshua 7:5). When Joshua fell on his face before the Ark, the Lord answered, “Israel has sinned” (Joshua 7:11, ESV). Scripture names Achan as the offender, yet it treats his breach of the covenant as a wound in the whole people among whom he lived. The Lord would not allow Israel to carry on as though nothing had happened.

In Jerusalem the circumstances were different. The believers were of one heart and soul, and some voluntarily sold property to provide for those in need (Acts 4:32–35). Barnabas sold a field and laid the proceeds at the apostles’ feet (Acts 4:36–37), and his generosity is the immediate backdrop for what follows. Ananias and Sapphira also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge, Ananias kept back part of the proceeds and laid the rest at the apostles’ feet (Acts 5:1–2)—the very gesture Barnabas had made. Peter’s questions make the issue plain: the land was theirs before the sale, and the money remained at their disposal afterward (Acts 5:4). They were free to give only part of the price. Their sin was presenting that part as though it were the whole.

This distinction matters for the church. Acts does not command every Christian to sell a home or hand every dollar to a common fund; the believers’ generosity was real precisely because it was willing. Ananias and Sapphira wanted the appearance of that generosity while privately arranging something else. They sought credit for a sacrifice they had not made—the honor of giving everything along with the security of keeping some. Their gift said openly, “All of this belongs to the Lord,” while their hidden act said, “This part is ours.” That divided claim turned their offering into a deception. Laying money "at the apostles' feet" (4:35, 37; 5:2) was a gesture of submission. It placed the gift under the apostles' authority rather than keeping it as a patron's leverage. That makes Ananias's act worse. He performed the gesture of surrender while quietly keeping control, reaching for Barnabas-level honor at a discount.

Peter exposed the spiritual depth of that lie when he asked Ananias why Satan had filled his heart “to lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3, ESV), and then declared, “You have not lied to man but to God” (Acts 5:4, ESV). The apostles and the congregation had been deceived, but the lie was aimed ultimately at the Holy Spirit, whom Peter, here, teaches us is God himself. About three hours later Sapphira came in, unaware of what had happened, and Peter gave her the opportunity to tell the truth by asking whether they had sold the land for the stated price. She repeated the agreed account (Acts 5:7–8). Peter then said the two had agreed together “to test the Spirit of the Lord” (Acts 5:9, ESV). Her answer shows that the deception was shared and sustained, and that she was responsible for her own words.

In Joshua 7 the Lord exposed Achan by lot, and Israel carried out the judgment he commanded in that setting; afterward they raised a heap of stones over him in what came to be called the Valley of Achor, meaning “Trouble” (Joshua 7:26). In Acts 5 Ananias and Sapphira fell dead under God’s direct judgment, and great fear came upon the whole church and on all who heard of it (Acts 5:11). We should neither soften the seriousness of these deaths nor assume that every Christian who lies will immediately die. Scripture records these judgments at founding moments in the life of Israel and of the church; they are not God’s ordinary way of dealing with every sin. If they were, as many have observed, no congregation would survive a single Sunday. Yet their exceptional character does not make them irrelevant. They reveal at the outset what God’s holiness is like, so that his people will never mistake his patience for indifference.

The walls of Jericho had fallen, but Achan still had to answer for what he buried beneath his tent. The early church was growing in love and generosity, but Ananias and Sapphira still had to answer for the money they kept and the lie they told. The concern reaches wider than money. Achan’s desire for treasure led him to disregard God’s command; Ananias and Sapphira’s desire for a generous reputation led them to lie. Greed can make us clutch what we should surrender; pride can make us claim to have surrendered what we still clutch. A person can look wholly devoted to the Lord while carefully protecting a private ambition.

That warning belongs to ordinary church life. We may promise support and quietly withhold it, exaggerate what we have given, or present a polished devotion that conceals persistent sin. These passages do not forbid owning property or require every believer to give the same amount. They call us to speak honestly about what we give and to keep the commitments we freely make before God.

The gospel gives us a reason to face the truth instead of burying it. We cannot hide our sin from God, and we cannot make ourselves clean by looking holy. But Jesus knew the full depth of human sin and gave himself for sinners anyway. Whoever turns to him in repentance and faith is forgiven because of his death and resurrection, not because of a carefully guarded reputation. Even the Valley of Achor is not the last word: through Hosea the Lord promised to make that valley of trouble “a door of hope” (Hosea 2:15, ESV). So let these accounts stir us to reverence, generosity, truthfulness, and confession while there is still time. The Lord sees what is buried beneath the tent and what is held back behind the offering, and his grace calls us out of hiding and into the light, to follow Christ with undivided hearts.