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When the Church Is the Church |
Acts chapter 5 |
No story has troubled me over the years, or baffled me more, than the Acts story of Ananias and Sapphira. It just did not, and still does not, actually, make sense to me. First, I don't know whether to believe it or not; but, saying I do believe it, why in the world did it happen to these poor new folk in the church. I was determined a few years ago, though, to try to come to terms with it. And to preach it. This is the sermon that I devised. With a lot of texts and sermons, the wisest thing to do is to tell the people, as part of the sermon, what you have gone through to get the words out that you are speaking at that moment. I have done that here. The struggle with the story and the text are both part of the sermon. What would you preach about Ananias and Sapphira? Why did what happened happen? Why was Luke, the doctor, so captivated with the story that he had been told as to tell it again here? Ironically, I ended up really liking the sermon. It does manage to get some things said that I wanted to say. You will have to decide what, if any, damage my treatment does to the text. |