In the chapter before, the community of believers lived idyllically with everyone sharing and no one having an unmet need among them. A man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold a property and they kept a portion back and brought the rest and laid it at the feet of Peter. Peter calls him out on the lie, he says he could have not sold it, or been truthful about the price, but he put on a false show. Ananias drops dead and his wife comes in with the same story and she dies too. In a religious movement marked by generosity and forgiveness, suddenly there’s a dramatic consequence and people are afraid. With everyone watching, the Holy Spirit leaves no margin for financial double-dealing or false piety. 

The believers continue to meet at Solomon’s Portico and many sick and possessed come and are healed, and many men and women join the movement. 

The established religious leaders are jealous of the crowds and arrest the apostles and put them in prison, but at night an angel opened the doors and let them out. Instead of running away, at daybreak they go to the temple and continued teaching. In the morning when the Sadducees go to fetch them, they were gone.

The religious leaders now became afraid to rearrest them because the people might turn on them, but command them to stop teaching in the name of Jesus. The apostles say that God has blessed their message with the Holy Spirit which makes the established leaders even more furious.

A wise religious teacher named Gamaliel steps in and tells about several offshoot religious leaders that have previously come and gone. He warns the Sadducees to not interfere. “For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.“ They take his advice and back off, for a while. But then they beat the apostles and command them not to speak of Jesus. Instead of stopping, the apostles rejoice that they are worthy to suffer for Christ and continue sharing in the temple and going house to house.