Today I want to revisit a sermon preached some years ago titled "Fatal Subtractibn." Based on the Acts 4 and 5 scriptures of Ananias and Sapphira, it centers on the story of a husband and wife who took away things from their lives and ended up dead. Theirs was a fatal subtraction because they subtracted where they were supposed to add and added where they were supposed to subtract. It is clear they had not mastered the basic principles of Christian arithmetic and died because they held back a vital portion of their earnings which were promised to the church. They reduced their gifts during a critical time of the early church and threatened to undermine its forward movement.

Our story today finds Peter and the other apostles working hard to spread the Good News of the risen Christ. They ha…