Wednesday 5, August 2026

In our younger years, a friend once offered some words of wisdom to my sister. He stated, ‘My dear, in life, there’s experience bought, and experience taught’. He then noted that there is wisdom in learning from others’ experiences; we don’t always need to seek painful experiences for ourselves. Although the lesson was not intended for me originally, it has remained with me. Today’s Holy Nougat often reminds me of this lesson.

Acts 5:5, 11 CEVDCI

[5] As soon as Ananias heard this, he dropped dead, and everyone who heard about it was frightened.

[11] The church members were afraid, and so was everyone else who heard what had happened.

The Impacted

Working with people to end sexual and gender based violence often leaves me concerned about the impacted – those who were neither direct victims nor perpetrators of violence. They could be witnesses, relatives, children, first responders, health care, or social workers who are somewhat affected by a case of violence. Usually, no one remembers to address the trauma those persons face. If left untreated, that trauma will find an outlet, whether physical or psychosocial, to be released. As I reread the Nougat, I wondered whether those people’s fear was addressed.

Self-Check

Do we have buried trauma that needs to be processed? How does it affect our interpersonal relationships?

Deeper Dive

Siblings, those onlookers were very affected by the turn of events with Ananias and Sapphira. Whether they knew beforehand of the couple’s intent to defraud by misrepresenting the facts or not, being witnesses to the double deaths affected them. So much so that Luke included it in this evidence to the Gospel of Christ. He tells us twice that the onlookers were impacted by what they saw.

While we know that they were afraid, we don’t know with certainty that their fear was directed at God, Peter and the other apostles, or at the reality of death in their midst. Although Pax Romana marked the most peaceful period in that season of Roman history, that peace was wrought through extreme violence. It was very present among them. Under Pax Romana, any action deemed as treason was immediately punishable by death.

Could it be that in saying that Ananias and Sapphira lied to God, that Peter was accusing them of treason against the Emperor of all Ages? If so, then the fear they experienced was that of a political subject towards their sovereign. In the original Greek, phobos, which is transliterated as ‘fear’, also means terror resulting in flight, or respect. Luke doesn’t overtly say which of these it was, but we note that no one seemed to have left the faith.

This reminds us of Proverbs 9:10, which tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear that gripped everyone would have generated a new understanding of God as Sovereign in a territory where Caesar was deemed all-powerful and viewed as a demigod. I suspect that the fear was directed toward God’s Godness, given that no one touched the couple; they died suddenly, as if by an unseen force. That being said, I hope that the conversions that followed (see verse 14) were due to a desire to know God and not just from fear.

Siblings, there is an extent to which believers today – myself included – do not experience such an awe-full reverence towards YHWH or Y’shua. And, having somewhat limited direct experience of God’s Spirit, we have not been moved to awe for God’s Spirit either. Perhaps we need to learn of God’s sovereignty from the experiences of Ananias, Sapphira, and countless others. Or maybe it’s time to experience God for ourselves in a new and more impactful way. I’m not advocating for a terrible encounter, but one that invites a new level of reverence in us toward our Creator, our Refuge, and Saviour.

Even as we reflect on the impact of the experience on the onlookers, may we be impacted by God’s restraint in our time.

Prayer Point

Lord, whether through experience bought or taught, help us to be impacted by Your sovereignty and grace.

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May all we seek be found in Christ