Back when Peter was the head of Christ’s church it experienced explosive growth after they started proselytizing gentiles. These people were all way better than believers today because they were of one heart and one soul. Nobody owned anything, and everybody owned everything. They were perfect little socialists. Everyone with property sold it and gave the money to the Lord’s apostles who then distributed it among the faithful. I might be crazy, but to me this means if Christ’s church still existed and Mit Romney were a believer, he would be required to sell all his stuff and let the Lord’s anointed use it to provide healthcare to the poor or something.
Here’s the thing though: not everyone was perfect. There was this one time that some guy named Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold something and didn’t give all the money to St. Peter. They had the temerity to keep some of it for themselves. Of course Peter had the power of Christ so he could easily tell what Ananias and his wife had done.
So, when Ananias gave Peter only the majority of the sale price of his property, St. Peter said, “Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?” Peter told Ananias that he wasn’t stealing from people by keeping that money, he was stealing from God. Well, as you might expect Ananias was so scared after being found out that he spontaneously died.
Really, he died from fear? You really believe that? Come on people!
This seems a little odd, as fear by itself isn’t usually fatal. My guess is that St. Peter killed Ananias to set an example and then made up the story about fear-death later.
Three hours later Ananias’ wife Sapphira showed up looking for her husband. As soon as Peter saw her, he immediately demanded to know the exact sale price of the land. Sapphira was a good girl and stuck to the party line, giving the incorrect amount delivered by her husband as the sale price. Peter was still in a killin’ mood so he said, “How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.”
According to Peter, Sapphira also fell down dead all by herself after being called out for lying. Of course if I was Peter, I’d probably say the same thing and let everyone think that if they don’t give ALL their money to God it’s an instant death sentence carried out by the Lord himself.
Ref: Acts 4:31 - Acts 5:10
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