Chapter 7—A Warning Against Hypocrisy
This chapter is based on
Acts 4:32-37
to
5:11
.
As the disciples proclaimed the truths of the gospel in Jerusalem,
God bore witness to their word, and a multitude believed. Many of
these early believers were immediately cut off from family and friends
by the zealous bigotry of the Jews, and it was necessary to provide
them with food and shelter.
The record declares, “Neither was there any among them that
lacked,” and it tells how the need was filled. Those among the believers
who had money and possessions cheerfully sacrificed them to meet the
emergency. Selling their houses or their lands, they brought the money
and laid it at the apostles’ feet, “and distribution was made unto every
man according as he had need.”
This liberality on the part of the believers was the result of the
outpouring of the Spirit. The converts to the gospel were “of one
heart and of one soul.” One common interest controlled them—the
success of the mission entrusted to them; and covetousness had no
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place in their lives. Their love for their brethren and the cause they
had espoused, was greater than their love of money and possessions.
Their works testified that they accounted the souls of men of higher
value than earthly wealth.
Thus it will ever be when the Spirit of God takes possession of the
life. Those whose hearts are filled with the love of Christ, will follow
the example of Him who for our sake became poor, that through His
poverty we might be made rich. Money, time, influence—all the gifts
they have received from God’s hand, they will value only as a means
of advancing the work of the gospel. Thus it was in the early church;
and when in the church of today it is seen that by the power of the
Spirit the members have taken their affections from the things of the
world, and that they are willing to make sacrifices in order that their
fellow men may hear the gospel, the truths proclaimed will have a
powerful influence upon the hearers.
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