Christian/Muslim ThreadsQuestions directed to both Muslims & Christians..Hello and welcome to the forums Elsa,
There is a very important reason for this story, and I think you may have missed it in your reading. To understand it.. you have to read from chapter 4:32-37. Persecution was drawing the small but new church together and it says they had everything in comman. This means the willingness to share and to help each other out. But.. there were tensions developing and hypocrisy was one of them. Hypocrisy and dishonesty was the worst thing this new movement needed in their midst and God who promised His church would grow, stamps on it immediately, by revealing the hypocrisy of Annanias and Sapphira. This act deepened the churches awareness of the Holiness of God. It is not enough to say I'm a Christian and then to continue acting as if you can do as you please. Later in the church history, Paul and the other New Testament writers declare that sometimes physical sickness and even death has come to people who take Communion without first putting things right in their lives. God's name is at stake when Christians who profess to know His name don't act like true Christians. In answer to your second question Please let me say.. I understand your dilemma. Yes, it does appear that it is not fair that someone who commits such a crime should be forgiven. But, to understand the Christian faith, you have to know there is no such thing as a big sin or a little sin, The bible says "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." You see, God Himself is the standard.. My behaviour is compared to His holiness and I can never reach His level of goodness. When Jesus walked the earth, there is the story of a time when to test him, the religious leaders brought a woman to him who was caught in adultery. according to Jewish law, she should have been stoned to death. Jesus wrote something in the sand, looked at those who would stone her and said "you who are without sin.. cast the first stone". You see Elsa, it's easy for any one of us to look at someone else and say "I'm better than they are.. or I would never do that". Jesus said, if we have looked at someone with hatred in our hearts, we have murdered them.. so my hating someone is as if I had killed them, and so I am no different in the eyes of a holy God, than if I had actually committed the crime. Can you see how impossible it is, if I use that criteria to make it to heaven? I can't. That is why I needed Jesus. The Bible says.. that "by his stripes I have been healed, He was wounded for my sins" Only God Himself who said I am a sinner, could provide the way to forgive me my sins. If someone wrongs me, I stand as condemned as that person. I can never look at someone else and say anything about their behaviour, because I can also only say "there, but for the grace of God go I." I'm sure you have lots more questions, so please do ask and we'll try and answer them. God bless Carol |
🌈Pride🌈 goeth before Destruction
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