sold a field he owned, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.having a field, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.having a field, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
3 sermons cite this verse
What I want us to do is next week we're going to look at Acts 2, 42-47 as well as Acts 4, verse 32-37 and see the picture of community. But I want us to see what's sandwiched in the middle. It's a story of Peter and John and a guy who's crippled from birth in Acts 3, verse 1. And we'll start reading there. And I want us to see the significance of this story played out even in our community of faith here at the church at Brook Hills. Verse 1 says, One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon. Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. And then Peter said, look at us. …
… which means son of encouragement, sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet. That guy made it into the scripture. Joseph made it right into the word of God. We got guys preaching and then put in jail and then threatened, and of course, Peter and John are gonna make it into the scripture. But the last person mentioned in this whole section is Barnabas, and he's mentioned because he's got an extra piece of land. We don't know if it's an investment property. We don't know if he inherited it. We don't know if he'd planned to build something on it. We're not sure of all the details. We just know at some point it dawned on him. We got people in our new burgeoning Christian community who have needs, and I got that piece of land. I'm gonna sell that land. I'm gonna bring it into the house of God. I wanna go above and beyond. I don't have to sell the land. …
… There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. He sold a field that belonged to him and then brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. One of the problems with the book of Acts is that it insists on giving us these little snapshots, these little vignettes of what life was like in the earliest Christian community. And frankly, they can be rather discouraging. They're not discouraging because they're gloomy or bad news. Quite to the contrary, they're discouraging because they're so darn perfect. They're so blue sky, so blissful, so idyllic. It's difficult not to compare them with what we experience of the realities of the church today. …