Pastor's Ponderings: Monday & Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 23:1-24 (August 31 & September 1, 2026)

August 30, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 23:1-10

To my dear great friends in Christ who are a part of this study on Mondays and Tuesdays each week.  I hope that you enjoyed, and survived, for those of you on the west side of Tucson, the wonderful rain that we had in town at about 5AM.  I drove the van to get our son to work at 5:40AM, and we did that because of its clearance and heavy tread tires which cut through the heavy water accumulation on the city streets.  Please continue to keep Camille in your prayers as she starts her new chemotherapy on the 15th of September.  Please pray too for Teri as she continues to deal with pain and limited mobility after her doctor's use of a new hip replacement technique.  For me, I am still battling allergy issues and headaches, but it seems to be slowly improving, and I am getting full night’s sleep without having to medicate in the middle of the night.  I am going to go see my primary care this week to see what else can be done.  If you were not at church Sunday, you missed the opportunity to meet Carson Lanning and his father Scott.  Carson will begin playing for us starting on Gospel Music Sunday.  That means that I will be able to sing once again, allergies permitting.  This Sunday is our carry-in meal after worship, and the theme is food that you would have liked to have had for your school lunches but instead ended up with things that you didn't care for.

Our passage for today is found in Acts 23:1-19.  In a light read, it seems that Paul has a death wish and is inadvertently causing upheaval as he attempts to speak to the leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem.  In this passage there are a number of things which the reader might not know, unless they have done some in-depth study.  So, what is Paul about here?  Remember that he has been brought here by the Roman commander due to the fact that Paul is a Roman citizen by birth, which grants him certain rights, but when he continues to speak before the Sanhedrin, it is obvious that Paul has some plan in place for how he will move what is about to happen.  The very first thing that Paul does is to address the Sanhedrin as an equal by using the word brethren as he addresses them.  In the tradition of the leaders and Jewish rules, the men in the Sanhedrin should be addressed instead in this way.  "Rulers of the people and Elders of Israel."  However, that is not what Paul has in mind.  Here we discover that Paul is from a multi-generational family of Pharisees, which is why he places himself before this judgement group as their equal.  And when the chief priest calls for Paul to be stuck on the mouth for his words, Paul uses his citizenship as an Israelite to put the high priest in his place, by reminding him in his anger with Paul that " to strike an Israelite man is the same as striking the Holy God of Israel Himself."  This angers the high priest, but then Paul takes it even further and calls the high priest a white wall!  You and I might not understand this as such a massive insult, but what Paul is saying here is that the high priest, who is noted for his lack of holiness and abuses of the people and of his power, is just like the burial site which has been whitewashed, so that no one might touch it and become ritually defiled and unclean.  For us it seems like Paul is digging himself an even deeper hole which he must climb out of or become entrapped.  However, Paul is just getting started.  It is at this point that Paul places into the discussion of the Sanhedrin a topic which was bound to cause upheaval and heavy arguments between the Pharisees and the Sadducees to get into one of their great, heated arguments about who knew what they were talking about.  The Pharisees believed in angels, and the tiniest detail of the Law, and predestination, and the really big one, RESURRECTION!  The Sadducees would have none of it and really thought that the Pharisees had lost their way, and were completely mad to believe in such things, The argument which followed was so violent that the Roman commander was certain that Paul, a Roman citizen by birth, would be torn apart in the midst of what was happening, so he removed Paul to the Roman barracks.  It was indeed Paul's plan to undo the Temple leaders and the high priest because their corruption was publicly evident.  Paul witnessed to their brokenness, and at the same time, made it clear what he personally was about in his mission and ministry.  What you and I need to realize is that Paul's plan worked!  However, this is just the beginning for Paul's proclamation.  In our reading for tomorrow, the very first word, from Christ Himself to Paul, was "courage".   Tomorrow we will take the time to hear what more Christ has to say to Paul about what was coming in Paul's future.

Thank you for taking the time to be with me this morning.  God bless you and keep you safe on this stormy day. 

In Christ's love, Pastor Kim

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September 1, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 23:11-24

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. 

Thank you for being here to share with me this morning on this next text from Acts.  Remember that Gospel Music Sunday is coming up this next Sunday.  That means lots of good music, our new piano player, and great food afterward.  The theme is what you would rather have had for school lunch when you were young.  Please remember that hot dishes need to have an electric heating device if you need to keep them warm (crock pot or warming tray).  Please continue to pray for Regina as she has cataract surgery on the eye that had retinal surgery a few weeks ago.  It will be tomorrow.  My special thanksgiving to God for Debbie taking time out of her busy day to get Regina to her surgery, and then back home afterwards.  I know that Regina is most appreciative.  Melody and I attended a housewarming for Gabriel and Bianca in Rio Rico on Sunday afternoon.   May God bless their lives and their home as they get settled in. 

Today our passage begins where we stopped yesterday.   Paul had to be protected by the Roman soldiers after he confronted the corruption and misuse of the Temple by its leaders.  He also talked about his faith, it many years of missionary success, and then intentionally got a great argument started between the members of the Sanhedrin.  Pharisees and Sadducees didn't agree on much of anything except their authority to judge others, and to take advantage of the benefits of the power they had in their positions leading the faithful in Jerusalem and persecuting the new Christian cult no matter where it showed up.  My last words to you yesterday were Christ's first words to Paul.  "Courage, you have witnesses in Jerusalem, and now you must take your message and faith to Rome to proclaim me there."  This happened a short time after the confrontations in the Temple.  But the continuing wrath of the people in the Temple as they were after Paul, and then the leaders who held a sham trial for Paul. did not seem to be enough in terms of Jewish outrage, an outrage that caused the anger of the Jews to settle in a plot to kill Paul.  Some forty Jews gathered, planned, and reported their intentions to the leaders of the Temple.  None of the forty would eat until they had killed Paul.  You and I need to know that Christ had, and still does have, not only the will to save His faithful children, but the means to make his protection take place.  It was certainly mor than irony that a relative of Paul's happened to overhear the plans of that murderous group of men.  What strikes me so strongly about all of this is that there must not have been even one righteous leader in the Temple.  The leaders heard the plan and made it clear that they would help by calling for Paul to come before them again for a further consideration of his claims and ministry for Christ.  However, Paul's young relative told him about the plan, Paul sent him to the Centurions, and in turn, they sent Paul's young relative to the Commander of the army stationed in Jerusalem to tell him too.  The result was the commander calling together an army of men to accompany Paul to his trial before Felix, the Roman governor of the area.  There is real irony that the leaders of God's elect are filled with wrath and take a position to support the murder of Paul, while the "brutal Romans" are gentile and working hard to keep Paul safe.  I sometimes wonder when the conservative Christians want to destroy people that they deem as unworthy of Christ's love and forgiveness but want it and claim it for themselves.  God's children can certainly get things wrong! It is no wonder that Christ had to come for our redemption.

Thanks for being here with me this AM. 

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday & Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 22:11-30 (August 24 & 25, 2026)

August 24, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 22:11-21

Blessing and Peace be with you today, and always, my good friends in Christ who study the Word of the LORD during more than Sunday Morning Worship.

I announced during my sermon on Sunday that through the generosity of increased gifts, the church council has employed a 20-year-old pianist who is studying at the U of A. I interviewed this young man several weeks ago, and I can tell you that his gifts on the keyboard are wonderful. I can hardly wait for you all to come to worship to hear him. His schedule to start was a little unsure because he is also a drummer on the line of the U of A pep band. He may be with us on Gospel Music Sunday, but if not on that Sunday, it will be the second Sunday in September. His name is Carson. Please know that Carson approached us first looking for a church in which he might share his gifts from week to week. He may be away for some of the away football games as well this Fall. I will take over the piano once again when he is unable to be with us. I have noticed of late that it is getting more difficult for me, visually, to read the music, and play it on the keyboard. I love to play, but my skills have been on the decline for a while. I encouraged the Church Council to hire Carson. He will bring new life into the music and hymnody in worship. I will let you know next week when he will be beginning and sharing his gifts for music at worship. In your prayers, please pray for Regina who is not having any improvement in her vision after her retinal surgery. It has been a week now. And pray too for Camille who is getting injections in her lower spine to help with the pain she is suffering in the spinal discs of her lower back. A special thanks to God for Sharyn and her constant willingness to help with appointments like this, helping to transport members, and friends too, when that help is necessary.

Today we are getting into the second part of Paul's declaration to the Jews in the Temple who have been determined to punish him for his failure to adhere to Temple Law. (He brought a non-Jew, a man from Ephesus, into an area into which only a Jew was able to go.)  After he had been detained by the Romans to satisfy the anger of the mob, Paul had stood on the steps of the Temple to share his story, his relationship with Jewish Law as a Pharisee, His faithfulness in the persecution of members of the Christian Cult, the Way, and also telling of the way  in which God and Christ had broken into his life, called him to bring the Gospel to the Jews, but then making it clear that if the Jews rejected him, just like they had rejected God's Son, then he should move to take God's Word of light and life and love to the gentiles.   All of this was indeed Paul's story about how all these things had transpired. If you would like further details read Galatians 1 and Acts 9 once again. There are here, in Paul's story, the essence of what it means to be a Christian person.

1. Every Christian should know the Will of God, and then out of thanksgiving to God for bestowing each Christian's life with faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, and obeying Christ's Words of Life, the gift of faith. That is sometimes very difficult to hold onto every moment of the Christian's life, but it is exactly what we need to be about, carrying the compassion and love of Christ, into a very broken and sin filled world, proclaiming the wonder and power of His passion for all people.

2. To see the Just One in, with, and around the believer every day, and seeking His presence through faith, prayer, and action that bring Christ's justice to all people. The message board at the Unitarian Universalist Church on 22^nd Street this past Sunday said that their goal as good people was to bring fairness and justice into the world in everything that their community did.

3. That every believer seeks to hear Christ's voice. I really believe that happens through the presence of Christ's Spirit, speaking to our hearts and minds constantly, and breaking through when we are unwilling or unable to listen clearly. I have been told that I have a gift for proclaiming the Gospel. I want you to know that a powerful part of that is to take the time, sometimes even during the sermon itself, and to take a few moments to listen for the Spirit's guidance as I share that Sunday's message. A Pastor must never be too busy to hear, to ponder, and then to speak the Holy message of the Gospel. That is true for every one of us in every circumstance too.

You have my prayers for God's richest blessings in your lives.

With the Love of Christ, our Savior and Lord, Pastor Kim

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August 25, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 22:22-30

Good morning. I am so glad that you are with me today as we continue to delve into Paul's experience in Jerusalem. We are under a heat warning forecast for the rest of this week through this coming Saturday. Please be certain that you are being careful with hydration even if you are just staying at home, and if you are out and about, like our out to lunch Foodies of Faith group this coming Friday, be certain to hydrate well before you are picked up, or are coming on your own to eat at Istanbul on east Speedway Blvd. Our sign up is small, but our group will grow again when the Prasek’s and the Backer’s return from their summers away up north where the weather is supposed to be cooler but also has been stormy. Hold them in your prayers for safety in their homes. This Sunday we will also have our Donut and Coffee hour before Worship. We will get started at 9AM. This is a great opportunity to be together with your sisters and brothers in Christ for conversation, support, and joy! After our vote to sell our church property at the special congregational meeting on the 16th of July, we are now waiting to hear from the congregation who has expressed interest in the purchase of our facilities. They expect to have a congregational vote sometime in mid-September. Yesterday I told you about Carson Lanning. We will know later this week about his exact start day with us. I hope everyone who attended the special meeting will come to meet Carson too. He is a wonderful gift that God has placed in our care for our joy and worship life together.

Today we continue in the saga of Paul's issues with the Jews. In his presenting his Jewish vita, the crowd received his life's story quite well, but when he once again got to his mission to the gentiles, and leaving the Jewish community behind due to their rejection of God's Son, the trouble and riot started once again, because Paul made it clear that the Jews were being left behind at the orders of God and Christ! The Roman commander found this very difficult because the Jews were speaking in Aramaic, which the commander did not understand, and the actions of the Jews, yelling, throwing their arms in the air, and tossing dust and dirt from the ground was troubling to the Roman commander who knew that he could not allow this all to grow into a full riot, with having his position challenged in his own government. So, he decided to bind Paul and use a scourge, a leather strap with bone and metal imbedded in it to get Paul to confess. However, Paul knows that it is not his time yet to lose his life to the Romans, and he also knows what is allowed in the punishment of a Roman citizen who has not been found guilty in the breaking of any Roman laws. And there is one more issue. The Roman commander had purchased his own citizenship, and probably his rank in the army too, and when he found out that Paul was a natural born citizen of Roman heritage, the commander knew that to even bind Paul was something that could not happen, and to scourge Paul would have been to commit a heinous crime, because Paul's natural birth citizenship held far more power and authority in the Roman empire, than one which had been purchased. Paul is released immediately, but then the decision is made to present him to the Temple authorities. That will be our next reading for next Monday. Paul knew that he had much more work to do in proclaiming Christ to the world, and he may well have died under that scourge which the Roman commander was planning. In all this Paul had been preaching the sublime freedom and grace which became the life of those who believed in Christ as their Lord and Savior. That is what enraged the Jews. They would have had no problem if Paul had preached the yoke of Jewish law and circumcision to the gentiles. Of course, we must always remember that Paul had a great education in the Jewish Law, and his years as a Pharisee were his to use as he defended Christ to those who had so summarily rejected Christ as the long-awaited Messiah. At this point in Acts we find Paul understanding that he had much more work for Christ to do before he would allow himself to be brought to his life's end. In some ways I too can identify with Paul. Even though I am 76 years old, the same age as the Body of Christ of which all of us are a part at American Lutheran, I too know that it is not yet time for me to turn away from my own proclamation of Christ's Lordship for all people, for us in our congregation, and for those who are only now just coming to realize the power of Christ's love for their lives. I know that we sometimes have this throw-away ideation in our culture, and in the culture of the church too, yet turning away from the years of constant learning and growing which are a part of a pastor's life, is a great loss. I know that many clergy find themselves worn out by the regular age of retirement. They are ready to hang up their clerics and collars, and rest. Now at 76 I do need more rest, but that is pretty normal for my age, what I have, and desire to continue, is to bring the living Christ into the lives of people, those continuing in their faith journey, and those who are still seeking to find what you and I know about the Savior. We are always immersed in the waters of our Baptisms and constantly blessed with Christ's Grace and Love in every situation, and in every day.

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday & Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 21:37-22:10 (August 17 & 18, 2026)

August 17, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 21:37-40

Good morning on this heat warning day in Tucson.

I hope that you had a good weekend. Just in case you were unable to be with us on Sunday for our special congregational meeting, this morning I want to share the results. At our specially called meeting, the congregation decided to sell the church building and parish hall, if possible, to a congregation that has already expressed a very serious interest in our facility. Of course, they too can only move to buy by the action of their congregation. That will probably take place in the next three or four weeks. If we are able to sell to this congregation, we will have up to two years to locate a new site for the congregation, with the help of the Grand Canyon Synod. Of course, we will keep you appraised in how all of this takes place. There are many things to consider as we are seeking a new location. It has been my hope that we might be able to end up on the Sunshine Mile or somewhere not too far from Broadway. As always please continue to keep our church council and officers in your prayers as we set about an opportunity for new direction in our ministry.

Today we get to see the results of Paul's circumstances around introducing an Ephesus non-Jew in the courts of the temple. It would seem that the whole decision to ask Paul to oversee these four men for "initiation" into the Jewish faith was just an attempt to entrap him in some way, and it worked! Now that Paul had committed this seemingly innocent act, we see the anger and hostility of the Jews for any outsider, even one who had lived in their midst as a pharisee. As we discovered last week, there was such an uproar about this that the Roman soldiers were called to stamp it out. Based on information the Romans could discover, there were no cohesive issues that the Jews could present to warrant such crowd actions.

However, in our reading for today, we discover that Paul had to literally be carried by the soldiers to escape the angry crowd. Since Paul asked to speak with the Roman commander, and the commander asks if Paul can speak Greek, I think that the lack of Luke's text here is meant to have us read between the lines, thinking of the heritage of Paul, and his special gifts for speaking with people from Jews, to gentiles (Greeks), If we remember Paul's journeys, it must be obvious that his language skills, and debating skills were very strong. Paul indicates his birth city home, and of course it becomes obvious that Paul is not only a Jew, but also a Roman citizen, which grants him rights and privileges that a person whose heritage was only Jewish would not be granted. When Paul is given the opportunity to speak, an amazing miraculous thing happens. It was obvious to the Roman soldier that Paul was not the Egyptian revolutionary that the Romans had struggled to contain, the one who had 4000 men to strike against the Roman authorities. So, he was allowed to speak. We should all wonder how it was that Paul was able to silence the crowd who had wanted to kill him. Every once in a while, in our life experience we encounter a person who immediately strikes us in a way that makes us certain of the Spirit's presence in that individual. That was Paul! When Paul places his hand in the air, it was the power of God that flowed through him creating an overwhelming sense of awe in the crowd who had gathered there to cause him harm. In our reading for tomorrow we will hear Paul's defense. The power to allow the Spirit to flow from you to others is indeed a wondrous miracle of God.

God bless you, and hold you in His care throughout this day, and always.

Pastor Kim

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August 18, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 22:1-10

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. I hope your home was fortunate to receive some of last evening's rain. At our house we had a bunch of large rain drops, but only about 3 minutes of actual rain. Not enough to wet the road. I wanted to thank the members who were able to be at the specially called congregational meeting this past Sunday. We all know how warm it can be at church in the month of August. Remember, if you have any questions about how everything is proceeding, you can ask any council member. If they don't know the answer to your question, they can get it and get back to you.

Today our passage is from the 22nd chapter of Acts, verses 1-10. What we discover in the content which Luke shares with us, is that Paul is an extraordinarily strong person, filled with faith in Jesus, and allowing himself to face the harshest conditions in Jerusalem at the hands of the Jews. But in the face of that he chooses to address the crowds who have gathered to do him bodily harm. Speaking in Hebrew, Paul unfolds his life story for the crowd. The crowd had quieted down, and then Paul began to speak. The mob had thought Paul to be an outsider, but Paul's speaking assured them that he, like them, had lived most of his life the same city as them, that he was from a well-respected city, Tarsus, home to a major seaport for trade, and home of a great university, and center of learning. He also shares that he has studied under the guidance of Gamaliel, a great scholar of the history and law of the Jewish people. Please note that there is no one to argue with Paul in these minutes of sharing his life story. After all, there are many things about which a person could argue, but a personal story and experience is not one of them. Luke tells us that the quietness of the crowd becomes even more deep as Paul reveals who he is.

The very first thing that Paul does is to show the people of the mob that he is one of them, having grown up alongside them in Jerusalem. However, at the same time, in Paul's speech, he tells them that he has been set aside by Jesus Himself, while on the road to Damascus to persecute the Christians in that city, and to bring them to justice back to Jerusalem. The language he uses for this is to indicate that though he very much like the people of the Jewish faith, he has at the same time been made separate (holy) in the call of Jesus on his life on that stormy night just a short distance from his goal of persecution. You and I are made holy too, In Baptism, set aside to fully participate in the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives for the sake of the world.

We are called to be the ones who share the Gospel with others. I can tell you that you and I are just the same in many respects, immigrant history, or indigenous heritage, growing up in very similar places, learning the same lessons in school, sharing in the same Baptism in Jesus Christ. But there is something different too. I received an additional call to serve Christ's mission in the world, studying for four years in theological education beyond my undergraduate degree, getting approved by my graduate school in theology, by my synod's bishop, and examined by a group of scholars and pastors to verify that my call, learning, and commitment was exactly what I had felt in my life from my very early years, and then, being interviewed and called to serve the Gospel in your midst by the action of the congregation. That does not mean that we are separated by value or rank in Christ's Church, instead every one of us is needed for this work of the Kingdom to be continued from generation to generation. You and I are Holy, that is separated from being of the world and called to be in the world doing Christ's work. From my youngest years, I have always felt very comfortable in the Church, inspired to understand, and then to hear, the call of Christ in my life and work. "In Christ, loving equally, and serving joyfully” This was and is always the mission to which the Spirit calls us!

May God's richest blessing of faith and hope reside in you every day.

In the Love of Christ, Pastor Kim