The NIV 365-Day Devotional Reading PlanSample

Little White Lie

Sapphira

What was the price we agreed to say we paid again?

Sapphira silently calculated the cost of the land once more for good measure.

Nine . . . plus . . .

Take away half . . . add . . . or was it add half and take away . . . ?

She muttered to herself as she made her way through the city streets. I’m never going to get this right. Her husband, Ananias, had been over this with her a hundred times, but still she tended to forget things whenever she was nervous. One little mistake, and their charade would be over.

“I’ll go first and lay the money at the apostles’ feet,” he’d told her. “I’ll tell them that the amount was the full price we got for the property. Then, if anyone asks you about it, you just back me up. Got it?”

She got it all right. How else were they going to make ends meet if they didn’t keep a little kickback for themselves?

She’d been astonished lately at her friends and even perfect strangers. What had gotten into them? Everyone was out of their minds with generosity — selling houses and land as routinely as if they were eggs and butter.

Inside, she may have secretly wished she could be like the other churchgoers she admired.

But I’m just too practical, she reasoned. Maybe when Ananias and I get ahead, then we’ll be able to give like they do.

In the meantime, she had to say that she was fairly impressed with the amount they had agreed to give to the church. She reassured herself on her way to meet Ananias. That gift would certainly outweigh any little white lie she or her husband would tell.

And maybe, with a little luck, Ananias would have already taken care of it and no one would ask her anything. Then she wouldn’t have to tell a lie; she’d only have to live one.

Taken from NIV Women’s Devotional Bible