Ananias and Sapphira Holding Back Part of Their GiftBible World
5:1Acts 5:1
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession voluntarily, joining other believers who were selling to support the needy, in contrast to the noble benevolence of Barnabas. Under the Spirit's influence they pledged the land and its proceeds to the Lord, but when the impression lessened they regretted the pledge and agreed together to keep back a large share while bringing part as if it were the whole. That pretense was not merely deceiving men but lying to God and to the Holy Ghost, hypocrisy and fraud rooted in love of money and covetousness while seeking a reputation for self-sacrifice. Because a portion consecrated by vow is no longer the giver's own, to take it back is sacrilege and robbing God, and their instant death by divine judgment was directed to meet that first falsehood and guard the young church from demoralization. Their brief but terrible history stands as a danger-signal for every age, for the same withholding and deceptive dealing continues and, though often without visible displeasure now, will as surely be visited in the judgment.
Sale Setting and Background
Ananias acted together with Sapphira his wife in selling a possession, in contrast to Barnabas's noble benevolence, as a dark stain upon the first church. They had noted that those who parted with possessions to supply the wants of poorer brethren were held in high esteem among believers, and upon consulting together decided to sell their property and affect to give all the proceeds into the general fund while really retaining a large share for themselves. The sale followed the example of other believers who gave their possessions to support those in need, and in this Ananias and Sapphira joined the disciples in that movement of generosity. Their presence as those who joined shows that false or unworthy members were present even in the first church.
While under the direct influence of the Spirit of God they were moved by softening grace to release selfish hold on earthly possessions, after hearing the apostles preach the gospel with power and deep conviction resting on all present. In that state they pledged certain lands and their proceeds to the Lord. The decision to sell and give was entirely voluntary with no compulsion and no undue influence compelling them to sacrifice. The property before sale and its proceeds afterward remained in their own power to dispose of as they chose, and no one required them to give up their property. Their sale thus became the setting for deception, as they kept back part while presenting the gift as the full amount.
The name Ananias in this setting has come to represent a reputation for misrepresentation, pretending to give all while keeping some back. The verse sets the scene for their offense against God. The swift and terrible manifestation of divine judgment that followed was observed by the Jewish leaders and increased their fear and hatred of the apostles. The Jewish priests and rulers in council planned to accuse the apostles of murdering Ananias and Sapphira, joining that charge to insurrection and a plot to take away priestly authority and put the priests to death, in order to stir up the mob to treat the apostles as they had treated Jesus.
Motives and Deceptive Agreement
By agreement together they decided to keep back a large share of the price while bringing a certain part to the apostles as if it were the whole, understating the sale price and claiming the amount named was all they had received. The case was one of underhanded, deceptive work in which the keeping back with the wife privy to it was a joint plan to affect to give all into the general fund while really retaining for themselves.
When the heavenly impression grew less forcible they thought they had been too hasty, questioned the pledge, wished to reconsider, and drew back from fulfilling what had been promised. Covetousness first cherished in the heart led them to regret fulfilling it and to decide not to fulfil it. Selfishness warped their character and opened the door by which Satan at once entered and gained control of their minds.
They sought both security and esteem: to secure a living from the common fund and to receive support from the common stock, to be thought liberal and self-denying, to gain a reputation for self-sacrifice and devotion and the high esteem of the brethren, and to appear generous while retaining money. Having noted that those who parted with possessions to supply the wants of poorer brethren were held in high esteem, they planned both to secure that esteem and to have their living estimated much higher than it really was. Their attempt to appear generous while keeping back part of the price was a deceptive effort to win praise for liberality.
Ashamed to have brethren know their selfish souls grudged what had been solemnly dedicated and pledged to God, they deliberately talked the matter over together and decided to withhold part of the price and practice deception. They pretended to greater generosity and to full surrender to God, acting the part of deceivers by pretending to make an entire sacrifice when they were covetously withholding a portion for themselves.
Nature of Their Sin
Their bringing of only part of the price as if it were the whole, while pretending to be wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, was hypocrisy, fraud, falsehood and dissembling. They were two avaricious hypocrites and dissemblers who professed to serve God while worshiping mammon, and their dissembling grew out of love of money that led them to withhold means entrusted to them for God's work. Their false claim was lying not unto men but unto God, lying to the Holy Ghost and tempting the Spirit of the Lord. By agreement together they kept back part of the price while bringing a certain part as if it were the whole, claimed to offer its full value to God, and understated the sale price by saying the land sold for the amount they named though it had sold for much more.
Lying is not a slight evil but an enormous sin that God regards with abhorrence. When a matter is carried from man to God, false witness is borne not to man but to the great God himself. God reads the heart and knows the exact truth, motives and purposes in every case, so hidden iniquity cannot be concealed and He will not be mocked. Their withholding of what God claimed while thinking the brethren would never know it only proved that motives and purposes cannot be hidden from Him who searches the heart, even if other people do not discover it.
Their deception was the first departure from truthful dealing among believers and the first falsehood and first case of falsehood in the newly formed church. Their hidden iniquity was like Achan's, exposed by God and followed by swift judgment as a warning that sins bringing God's wrath in ancient Israel can also bring it upon the church. Their covetousness expressed itself in appropriating what belonged to the Lord to supply a fancied deficiency in what they were paid, the same principle that led Judas to steal from the Lord's treasury while carrying the bag and reasoning that his labors were not sufficiently appreciated and that he had a right to pay himself according to his own ideas. Secretly misappropriating sacred funds and excusing dishonesty in handling money given for God's work corrupts conscience and character, betrays God's cause and endangers the soul.
Like Judas among the twelve they belonged to the class who profess to follow Christ while secretly cherishing iniquity, acting the part of deceivers in the church by pretending to make an entire sacrifice for God when covetously withholding a portion for themselves. They cherished evil under profession of godliness and shunned plain practical truth that exposes error, and all who so cherish evil hate those who condemn their sin and will betray faithful reprovers when opportunity comes. One not wholly consecrated to God, led by Satan to lie to the Holy Ghost, may do Satan's work while believing himself to serve Christ. No one can defraud God of what is His and prosper any more than Ananias and Sapphira could, for all people are God's property.
Vows and Giving Principle
A pledge to support God's work made when stirred by the Spirit is a vow to God, not merely a promise to people. Once a portion has been consecrated by such a vow it is no longer the giver's own to keep back or use for self. Ananias and Sapphira had pledged the proceeds of their sold possession to the Lord and then withheld part of the price while pretending to give all.
To take back what was pledged to advance God's sacred work is sacrilege and a broken vow made to God, not to man. A verbal or written pledge made in the presence of brethren is a contract between the giver and God, more binding than any promise to fellow men or any legal bond. Such a vow must be sacredly kept and not released.
The verse stands under God's plan of systematic benevolence in which the work bears equally on all according to ability, and each is his own assessor to give as he purposes in his heart. Voluntary offerings and the tithe are God's revenue, what He claims in the tithing system. Their sin was withholding a portion of what God claimed while thinking the brethren would never know it.
Withholding what God claims in tithes and offerings, even if undiscovered by others, is sin because God searches the heart and knows human motives and purposes. To withhold part of the proceeds from a sale while pretending to meet God's requirements is robbing God. God exposed Ananias and Sapphira as evidence that motives and purposes cannot be hidden from Him, and their example is a perpetual warning to Christians of all ages against the sin to which human hearts are continually inclined.
God will not accept a stinted, unwilling offering brought while means are spent lavishly on self-gratification. A small offering given while withholding what is due to God is no more acceptable when people spend freely to gratify themselves. Withholding from God what one ought to give while spending freely on self-gratification is an attempt to rob God, and even a small offering given unwillingly when withheld from duty is not accepted.
Guilt for breaking such a pledge rests on others in proportion to similar offenses. Vows and actions are weighed in the balance of justice in the heavenly courts. Though the same sin repeated now is often without visible displeasure, it will as surely be visited in the day of judgment, with many feeling the curse of God even in this life.
Judgment and Church Purity
When exposed their punishment was instant death by divine judgment, and in that death they lost both this life and the life to come. Keeping back part of the price while bringing a certain part as if it were the whole met sure punishment because it was lying to the Holy Ghost, tempting the Spirit of the Lord, and lying not unto men but unto God. Their deception was wholly voluntary, for no one required them to give up their property, yet God searched them out and struck them both dead as a warning against dishonesty, fraud and falsehood. Peter's dealing with them was directed by the Lord to meet that first departure from truthful dealing among believers at its start in order to prevent untold evil.
The signal manifestation of God's wrath and retributive justice was detected and exposed by the evidence of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of truth to the apostles. The Holy Spirit read the deception of two avaricious hypocrites and dissemblers who professed to serve God while worshiping mammon, and sudden stern punishment came upon them, showing deep contempt for all deception. The Spirit of truth revealed their real character as deceivers in the church who pretended to make an entire sacrifice while covetously withholding a portion for themselves. A special example was necessary to guard the rapidly increasing young church from becoming demoralized and disgraced. By that judgment God forever rid the church of this foul blot upon its purity and removed this stain from the church.
The marked judgment brought great fear upon the church and upon all that heard. It excited reverential awe in all the new converts and produced greater caution and more thorough self-examination in testing the motives of actions. It checked the spread of such hypocrisy in the rapidly growing church and served as a needed warning to the early church. This signal evidence of the discerning Spirit of Christ in the church was a terror to hypocrites and evildoers, who could not long remain in connection with those who in habit and disposition constantly represented Christ. So as long as trials and persecution continued the church remained comparatively pure, but when persecution ceased less sincere and devoted converts were added and the way was opened for Satan to obtain a foothold.
Their fate proves that God has not changed but is the same God in the gospel that He was in the time of ancient Israel. It shows the responsibility resting upon those who stand in high positions of trust not to pass over known sin but to purge it from among God's people.
Warning for Later Generations
The brief but terrible history that begins with a man and his wife selling a possession was traced for the benefit of all who profess to follow Christ as a danger-signal not only to the early church but to Christians in every age. It is a perpetual warning against withholding a portion of what God claims in the tithing system while thinking no one will know, for God searches the heart and no motive or purpose can be hidden from Him. The judgment that exposed their hidden iniquity, like that of Achan, shows that sins bringing God's wrath in ancient Israel can also bring it upon the church. God requires faithfulness in the performance of vows, and the warning should lead all to fear and tremble to repeat sins that brought such punishment, condemning selfishness and fraud still practiced in withholding from God what He claims and thus robbing Him in conflict with His arrangements to diffuse light and truth. Their example warns the church in every generation against covetousness, pretending to serve God, and withholding what has been dedicated to Him.
The same sin continues, for there are many Ananiases and Sapphiras in our day whom Satan tempts through love of money to withhold by various plans and excuses from God's treasury the means entrusted to them for the advancement of His work. Love of money leads professed Christians to dissemble and withhold means entrusted to them, pretending to give the whole while secretly keeping part. In any great religious movement there is always a class carried away by the current of feeling who soon reveal selfishness and vainglory, and such persons can never be an honor to the cause they advocate. Should the same punishment be visited now there would be many dead bodies in churches requiring burial, for concealing covetousness does not remove responsibility to use entrusted property for God's cause.
Although the same fraud, selfishness, and covetousness remain prevalent and are now often repeated without visible displeasure, withholding from God is no less heinous, destroys the soul, endangers eternal life, and will as surely be visited in the day of judgment. A pledge made to support God's work is a vow to God and not merely a promise to people, binding and to be judged even when no visible punishment follows at the time. The same sin repeated now is just as heinous in God's sight even though no visible mark of displeasure follows as then, with many feeling the curse of God even in this life. The same divine displeasure rests on dealings in the Lord's work that are not straightforward but deceptive, oppressive and unjust, using lawyers to take advantage of circumstances, exacting exorbitant prices, hindering the work, conniving at fraud and diverting His means into a wrong channel. It rests likewise on any who give the impression that profits are used to aid benevolent enterprises while in reality they are used for personal interests, and all who deceive in this way will surely meet the same fate in the day of final reckoning.
Their presence shows false or unworthy members were present even in the first church, for they joined the disciples and became examples of such. Yet this does not make Christianity untrue or warrant discouragement, and Christians are to bear patiently with false brethren who remain in the church. The lesson requires that all selfish meanness, underhand conduct, and deception be put away from the character, for the same Spirit that exposed their deceit still condemns all underhand dealing today. Practices offensive to God must not be used to control others, and no one can defraud God of what is His and prosper any more than they could, for all people are God's property; the warning is to forsake sin and turn to God and cultivate the Christian graces, because the influence of one unrepentant sinner is defiling and corrupts many others. Christian fathers should pray with their children about lying and impress its enormity upon their minds, lest they repeat sins that brought such punishment, for lying is not a slight evil but an enormous sin regarded with abhorrence.
Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession voluntarily, joining other believers who were selling to support the needy, in contrast to the noble benevolence of Barnabas. Under the Spirit's influence they pledged the land and its proceeds to the Lord, but when the impression lessened they regretted the pledge and agreed together to keep back a large share while bringing part as if it were the whole. That pretense was not merely deceiving men but lying to God and to the Holy Ghost, hypocrisy and fraud rooted in love of money and covetousness while seeking a reputation for self-sacrifice. Because a portion consecrated by vow is no longer the giver's own, to take it back is sacrilege and robbing God, and their instant death by divine judgment was directed to meet that first falsehood and guard the young church from demoralization. Their brief but terrible history stands as a danger-signal for every age, for the same withholding and deceptive dealing continues and, though often without visible displeasure now, will as surely be visited in the judgment.
Sale Setting and Background
Ananias acted together with Sapphira his wife in selling a possession, in contrast to Barnabas's noble benevolence, as a dark stain upon the first church. They had noted that those who parted with possessions to supply the wants of poorer brethren were held in high esteem among believers, and upon consulting together decided to sell their property and affect to give all the proceeds into the general fund while really retaining a large share for themselves. The sale followed the example of other believers who gave their possessions to support those in need, and in this Ananias and Sapphira joined the disciples in that movement of generosity. Their presence as those who joined shows that false or unworthy members were present even in the first church.
While under the direct influence of the Spirit of God they were moved by softening grace to release selfish hold on earthly possessions, after hearing the apostles preach the gospel with power and deep conviction resting on all present. In that state they pledged certain lands and their proceeds to the Lord. The decision to sell and give was entirely voluntary with no compulsion and no undue influence compelling them to sacrifice. The property before sale and its proceeds afterward remained in their own power to dispose of as they chose, and no one required them to give up their property. Their sale thus became the setting for deception, as they kept back part while presenting the gift as the full amount.
The name Ananias in this setting has come to represent a reputation for misrepresentation, pretending to give all while keeping some back. The verse sets the scene for their offense against God. The swift and terrible manifestation of divine judgment that followed was observed by the Jewish leaders and increased their fear and hatred of the apostles. The Jewish priests and rulers in council planned to accuse the apostles of murdering Ananias and Sapphira, joining that charge to insurrection and a plot to take away priestly authority and put the priests to death, in order to stir up the mob to treat the apostles as they had treated Jesus.
Motives and Deceptive Agreement
By agreement together they decided to keep back a large share of the price while bringing a certain part to the apostles as if it were the whole, understating the sale price and claiming the amount named was all they had received. The case was one of underhanded, deceptive work in which the keeping back with the wife privy to it was a joint plan to affect to give all into the general fund while really retaining for themselves.
When the heavenly impression grew less forcible they thought they had been too hasty, questioned the pledge, wished to reconsider, and drew back from fulfilling what had been promised. Covetousness first cherished in the heart led them to regret fulfilling it and to decide not to fulfil it. Selfishness warped their character and opened the door by which Satan at once entered and gained control of their minds.
They sought both security and esteem: to secure a living from the common fund and to receive support from the common stock, to be thought liberal and self-denying, to gain a reputation for self-sacrifice and devotion and the high esteem of the brethren, and to appear generous while retaining money. Having noted that those who parted with possessions to supply the wants of poorer brethren were held in high esteem, they planned both to secure that esteem and to have their living estimated much higher than it really was. Their attempt to appear generous while keeping back part of the price was a deceptive effort to win praise for liberality.
Ashamed to have brethren know their selfish souls grudged what had been solemnly dedicated and pledged to God, they deliberately talked the matter over together and decided to withhold part of the price and practice deception. They pretended to greater generosity and to full surrender to God, acting the part of deceivers by pretending to make an entire sacrifice when they were covetously withholding a portion for themselves.
Nature of Their Sin
Their bringing of only part of the price as if it were the whole, while pretending to be wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, was hypocrisy, fraud, falsehood and dissembling. They were two avaricious hypocrites and dissemblers who professed to serve God while worshiping mammon, and their dissembling grew out of love of money that led them to withhold means entrusted to them for God's work. Their false claim was lying not unto men but unto God, lying to the Holy Ghost and tempting the Spirit of the Lord. By agreement together they kept back part of the price while bringing a certain part as if it were the whole, claimed to offer its full value to God, and understated the sale price by saying the land sold for the amount they named though it had sold for much more.
Lying is not a slight evil but an enormous sin that God regards with abhorrence. When a matter is carried from man to God, false witness is borne not to man but to the great God himself. God reads the heart and knows the exact truth, motives and purposes in every case, so hidden iniquity cannot be concealed and He will not be mocked. Their withholding of what God claimed while thinking the brethren would never know it only proved that motives and purposes cannot be hidden from Him who searches the heart, even if other people do not discover it.
Their deception was the first departure from truthful dealing among believers and the first falsehood and first case of falsehood in the newly formed church. Their hidden iniquity was like Achan's, exposed by God and followed by swift judgment as a warning that sins bringing God's wrath in ancient Israel can also bring it upon the church. Their covetousness expressed itself in appropriating what belonged to the Lord to supply a fancied deficiency in what they were paid, the same principle that led Judas to steal from the Lord's treasury while carrying the bag and reasoning that his labors were not sufficiently appreciated and that he had a right to pay himself according to his own ideas. Secretly misappropriating sacred funds and excusing dishonesty in handling money given for God's work corrupts conscience and character, betrays God's cause and endangers the soul.
Like Judas among the twelve they belonged to the class who profess to follow Christ while secretly cherishing iniquity, acting the part of deceivers in the church by pretending to make an entire sacrifice for God when covetously withholding a portion for themselves. They cherished evil under profession of godliness and shunned plain practical truth that exposes error, and all who so cherish evil hate those who condemn their sin and will betray faithful reprovers when opportunity comes. One not wholly consecrated to God, led by Satan to lie to the Holy Ghost, may do Satan's work while believing himself to serve Christ. No one can defraud God of what is His and prosper any more than Ananias and Sapphira could, for all people are God's property.
Vows and Giving Principle
A pledge to support God's work made when stirred by the Spirit is a vow to God, not merely a promise to people. Once a portion has been consecrated by such a vow it is no longer the giver's own to keep back or use for self. Ananias and Sapphira had pledged the proceeds of their sold possession to the Lord and then withheld part of the price while pretending to give all.
To take back what was pledged to advance God's sacred work is sacrilege and a broken vow made to God, not to man. A verbal or written pledge made in the presence of brethren is a contract between the giver and God, more binding than any promise to fellow men or any legal bond. Such a vow must be sacredly kept and not released.
The verse stands under God's plan of systematic benevolence in which the work bears equally on all according to ability, and each is his own assessor to give as he purposes in his heart. Voluntary offerings and the tithe are God's revenue, what He claims in the tithing system. Their sin was withholding a portion of what God claimed while thinking the brethren would never know it.
Withholding what God claims in tithes and offerings, even if undiscovered by others, is sin because God searches the heart and knows human motives and purposes. To withhold part of the proceeds from a sale while pretending to meet God's requirements is robbing God. God exposed Ananias and Sapphira as evidence that motives and purposes cannot be hidden from Him, and their example is a perpetual warning to Christians of all ages against the sin to which human hearts are continually inclined.
God will not accept a stinted, unwilling offering brought while means are spent lavishly on self-gratification. A small offering given while withholding what is due to God is no more acceptable when people spend freely to gratify themselves. Withholding from God what one ought to give while spending freely on self-gratification is an attempt to rob God, and even a small offering given unwillingly when withheld from duty is not accepted.
Guilt for breaking such a pledge rests on others in proportion to similar offenses. Vows and actions are weighed in the balance of justice in the heavenly courts. Though the same sin repeated now is often without visible displeasure, it will as surely be visited in the day of judgment, with many feeling the curse of God even in this life.
Judgment and Church Purity
When exposed their punishment was instant death by divine judgment, and in that death they lost both this life and the life to come. Keeping back part of the price while bringing a certain part as if it were the whole met sure punishment because it was lying to the Holy Ghost, tempting the Spirit of the Lord, and lying not unto men but unto God. Their deception was wholly voluntary, for no one required them to give up their property, yet God searched them out and struck them both dead as a warning against dishonesty, fraud and falsehood. Peter's dealing with them was directed by the Lord to meet that first departure from truthful dealing among believers at its start in order to prevent untold evil.
The signal manifestation of God's wrath and retributive justice was detected and exposed by the evidence of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of truth to the apostles. The Holy Spirit read the deception of two avaricious hypocrites and dissemblers who professed to serve God while worshiping mammon, and sudden stern punishment came upon them, showing deep contempt for all deception. The Spirit of truth revealed their real character as deceivers in the church who pretended to make an entire sacrifice while covetously withholding a portion for themselves. A special example was necessary to guard the rapidly increasing young church from becoming demoralized and disgraced. By that judgment God forever rid the church of this foul blot upon its purity and removed this stain from the church.
The marked judgment brought great fear upon the church and upon all that heard. It excited reverential awe in all the new converts and produced greater caution and more thorough self-examination in testing the motives of actions. It checked the spread of such hypocrisy in the rapidly growing church and served as a needed warning to the early church. This signal evidence of the discerning Spirit of Christ in the church was a terror to hypocrites and evildoers, who could not long remain in connection with those who in habit and disposition constantly represented Christ. So as long as trials and persecution continued the church remained comparatively pure, but when persecution ceased less sincere and devoted converts were added and the way was opened for Satan to obtain a foothold.
Their fate proves that God has not changed but is the same God in the gospel that He was in the time of ancient Israel. It shows the responsibility resting upon those who stand in high positions of trust not to pass over known sin but to purge it from among God's people.
Warning for Later Generations
The brief but terrible history that begins with a man and his wife selling a possession was traced for the benefit of all who profess to follow Christ as a danger-signal not only to the early church but to Christians in every age. It is a perpetual warning against withholding a portion of what God claims in the tithing system while thinking no one will know, for God searches the heart and no motive or purpose can be hidden from Him. The judgment that exposed their hidden iniquity, like that of Achan, shows that sins bringing God's wrath in ancient Israel can also bring it upon the church. God requires faithfulness in the performance of vows, and the warning should lead all to fear and tremble to repeat sins that brought such punishment, condemning selfishness and fraud still practiced in withholding from God what He claims and thus robbing Him in conflict with His arrangements to diffuse light and truth. Their example warns the church in every generation against covetousness, pretending to serve God, and withholding what has been dedicated to Him.
The same sin continues, for there are many Ananiases and Sapphiras in our day whom Satan tempts through love of money to withhold by various plans and excuses from God's treasury the means entrusted to them for the advancement of His work. Love of money leads professed Christians to dissemble and withhold means entrusted to them, pretending to give the whole while secretly keeping part. In any great religious movement there is always a class carried away by the current of feeling who soon reveal selfishness and vainglory, and such persons can never be an honor to the cause they advocate. Should the same punishment be visited now there would be many dead bodies in churches requiring burial, for concealing covetousness does not remove responsibility to use entrusted property for God's cause.
Although the same fraud, selfishness, and covetousness remain prevalent and are now often repeated without visible displeasure, withholding from God is no less heinous, destroys the soul, endangers eternal life, and will as surely be visited in the day of judgment. A pledge made to support God's work is a vow to God and not merely a promise to people, binding and to be judged even when no visible punishment follows at the time. The same sin repeated now is just as heinous in God's sight even though no visible mark of displeasure follows as then, with many feeling the curse of God even in this life. The same divine displeasure rests on dealings in the Lord's work that are not straightforward but deceptive, oppressive and unjust, using lawyers to take advantage of circumstances, exacting exorbitant prices, hindering the work, conniving at fraud and diverting His means into a wrong channel. It rests likewise on any who give the impression that profits are used to aid benevolent enterprises while in reality they are used for personal interests, and all who deceive in this way will surely meet the same fate in the day of final reckoning.
Their presence shows false or unworthy members were present even in the first church, for they joined the disciples and became examples of such. Yet this does not make Christianity untrue or warrant discouragement, and Christians are to bear patiently with false brethren who remain in the church. The lesson requires that all selfish meanness, underhand conduct, and deception be put away from the character, for the same Spirit that exposed their deceit still condemns all underhand dealing today. Practices offensive to God must not be used to control others, and no one can defraud God of what is His and prosper any more than they could, for all people are God's property; the warning is to forsake sin and turn to God and cultivate the Christian graces, because the influence of one unrepentant sinner is defiling and corrupts many others. Christian fathers should pray with their children about lying and impress its enormity upon their minds, lest they repeat sins that brought such punishment, for lying is not a slight evil but an enormous sin regarded with abhorrence.