Hi! I’m Eliese, an 8th grader at Lincoln Lutheran Middle and High School. This is for my Religion 8 class. We are pretending to be five star book critiques.

 

I believe the theme for this chapter is hypocrisy. I believe this because on pg 88 the book says, “We are selling an acre and give every mite of it to the Widow’s Fund.” Ananias and Sapphira wanted popularity. Then on page 89,” What if we tell them we sold the property for just ten thousand dollars? She smiled. “Like a five-thousand-dollar down payment on a Jaffa condo?” I believe the author’s main point was that we need to do good things but not for popularity. If we do good and tell everyone just so we can be popular, what was really the intent of our actions while we did the good thing? We should do good things but not attention. I believe the author was implying that Hypocrisy is going against others, yes, but it is also going against God. I think the author’s goals was to get the message out that good deeds are good, but they become a sin or even a terrible thing if we do them and then spread the word about what we did, and I think he achieved it. For me at least. I believe that Ananias and Sapphira needed to die because they didn’t ever really have good intentions about giving the money. They wanted to do it for fame. When they got more money that expected for their land, they decided to keep some of it and lie to the church by saying they sold the land for ten thousand but they had sold the land for fifteen thousand. By lying to the church they were upright lying to God, and when confronted they denied their lies and didn’t repent. By not repenting or telling the truth they were basically saying that they deserve the extra fifteen thousand more than anybody and they also imply that they view worldly things more than their lives in heaven.