Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 48 (February 19, 2026)

February 19, 2026:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 48

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. I know that some of you who are doing these Bible Studies during the week are in much colder places than Tucson. However, today our high temperature is only going to be in the 50s. Up north that is spring weather, but here in Tucson it is cold (by our standards) and damp from light rain this morning. It is OK though, because next week, all week long we will be in the lower 80s during the day, and the 50s will be our nighttime lows. I hope that you get a chance to get some relief from the snow and winter weather where you live.

In our study for today we encounter the claims that God has chosen Jerusalem as His Home on earth. And, indeed, even today, though ridden with the remnants of battles, the Temple Mount remains a bright shining natural outcropping of white cliffs. In the time of our Psalmist, Jerusalem is the example of the natural work of the Creator, and God's presence there with David the Jews who live there, makes it a sight to behold through faith and vision. This Psalm addresses for us the faithfulness of God who has stuck by His chosen people through both obedience and disobedience, but the faithfulness of God Himself never fails. Though I have never traveled to the East and Jerusalem, the pictures which are widely available reveal it as a beautiful hilltop city, where many generations of Jews have lived and thrived, on this small hill on which God has chosen to anchor His Home, and to make it clear that failure to remember who He is can, and certainly does later in 70CE, cause God to allow the natural consequences of that lost faith, and the sense of the value of being God's People has withered away, to suffer the consequences of defeat and loss.  The shining city on the hill is obliterated by the Romans, leaving only the beauty of the natural rock hill to stand! I understand that pride is in one's hometown. Melody and I grew up in a small Lake Michigan community. As you drive into the city of Ludington on the lake, you are immediately immersed in mansion after mansion, beautiful Victorian homes, and Romanesque massive portico columns, left from the boom of the lumbering era, but still maintained today,  Ahead in the main section of downtown you can see the blue waters, or icebergs this time of the year, of Lake Michigan.  Main street ends in the harbor where there is a massive city beach, playground for children, golden sandy beaches, and verdant green grass in the park area, and along Lake Shore Drive you are taken to area lakes, and miles of sand dunes along the big lake to a state park where you can hike for hours along wooded paths and small bridges over clear water that eventually take you to massive dunes at the end of Hamlin Lake.  Unlike the people of Israel and Jerusalem, growing up there was a little slow with not a lot to do except cruising the main street back and forth on Friday night. Unlike the obliterated city of Jerusalem, Ludington remains vibrant, cold this time of the year, and a most lovely community. There you can still drink the city water without concern. It is fresh from the bottom of Lake Michigan some distance from the shoreline. As God chose Jerusalem for his earthly home, it is good for us to know that David was a pretty smart guy. He settled on a pretty defensible outcropping of rock, and even better, when enemies assailed this city, its people had an endless supply of spring water that came from a cave below the city. Out of the boasting in this Psalm, it is good for us to note that bigger is not necessarily better! That is often true for small congregations too. Jerusalem was a powerful resilient force to be reckoned with in its day, and so are many small congregations who really make a difference for their members, the community in which they live, and even impact God's world in which they exist. Like those people so long ago in Jerusalem, we too have joy in God's election of us through Baptism and Holy Communion in the Church today. And like the folks in Jerusalem, we must trust that God's promise to be with us, and has been kept for all the years of the ministry for the Gospel that has taken place on Tucson Blvd. On into our future, we too must trust the faithfulness of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier of Life as we live faithfully in our life's journey with Christ.

Thank you for allowing me to guide you through the study of Psalms.

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles Acts 13:1-3 (February 17, 2026)

February 17, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 13:1-3

Good morning on this rainy blessing for our desert. This winter really reminds me of winters when we first arrived in Tucson, and the call to serve Gospel of Jesus Christ at American Lutheran. Winter mornings were usually quite a bit colder than this winter has been, but it was the winter rain that was always so wonderful. We had great generous showers on the southeast side of town today. I want to remind you this morning of the opportunity to begin Lent tomorrow on Ash Wednesday. We have services at noon and 7pm with imposition of ashes and the Eucharist (communion). This ashen cross on our foreheads reminds us of the frailty every one of us faces as we age or become more infirm. It also is an acknowledgement of God's creative power which is filled with His love in this life, and in the next with our Savior. And it is certainly a physical way to remember the One to whom we belong. Besides that, it is a good way to begin our Lenten journey for this year. I hope that you will try to come to worship tomorrow. On Sundays in Lent, we will use setting 3 of the 10 settings in our ELW hymnal, and we will have two Gospel Music Sundays, one on the first of March and one on the twenty-ninth of March (Palm Sunday). Easter this year is on the first Sunday of April, the fifth of the month. Another guide for us is that we should all be praying constantly with confession, appeals to God for His help, for the health of our church, and Christ's Church, for our own needs, and for the needs of others, and in all things, offer praise to God with thanksgiving for His Grace in our lives.

This morning, we have a small passage from the 13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. But as we have learned before, a small passage does not mean an insignificant passage in the Word. Today our passage takes us to the process in the early Church of how leaders, prophets, teachers, and preachers were selected. If your text has Saul named in it, please just substitute the name Paul in its place. When we name him, it doesn't take us long to think about the prolific writings of Paul in our New Testament, and that should be a clue for us that others with other significant gifts of the Spirit will respond to the call of the Spirit to use their gifts too. Those names are Barnabas who we have already met earlier in the book of Acts, Simeon who is also named Niger (like the river), Lucius from Cyrene, Manaen, and Paul. At a time in worship these men were moved the Holy Spirit to become the people who would bear their Spirit given gifts into what would be a very unfriendly and dangerous journey for the sake of Jesus Christ, His life, His suffering, His death, and His Resurrection. This is the beginning of the first journey for the sake of the Gospel, and for the sake of all people. A truth that we must recognize is that compelling force of the Holy Spirit which called them to this service of sharing the Good News throughout Asia Minor and beyond. And just who were these men? Barnabas was a Jew from Cyprus. Lucius came from Cyrene in North Africa, Simeon was also a Jew, but his other name was given, Niger, and had connections to the Romans, Manaen was a man of wealth whose status was aristocratic giving him access to many who would only listen to a man of wealth and status.  Here we see the diversity of the people in the early Church, consisting of men from a variety of places, coming together, unified by their faith in the Savior they were able to work through their differences of birthplace, and their life's identity. Of course, we cannot forget Paul, a former Rabbi, steeped in Jewish Law, and a first-class debater in any circumstance. This group of men is no different than any congregation going through a call process to find a new pastor. Each person submitted to the congregation is different from the others, but it is their common unity in Christ which makes it possible for the selected Pastor to come and serve the Gospel's Truth in the Name of Christ. And in any process like this in the Church, it is a matter of the people who are calling a new person to serve the Gospel, being led by the Spirit as their choice is made for that call. It is the Spirit's way to guide congregations and pastors who must come together for the sake of the Mission of the Gospel, and both have need for the unity they share with one another, supporting and nurturing each other in the work to which they have been called. There is some thinking that Simeon of Cyrene, may be the same person as Simon of Cyrene who was called to carry Christ's cross as He was approaching Golgotha and His crucifixion. Out of that difficult order to help carry Christ's cross, Simon/Simeon, came to believe in the Savior, and would later be appointed by the early Church to carry the Gospel.

On Thursday we will venture into the Psalms again.

With Love in Christ our Lord, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 12:20-25 (February 16, 2026)

February 16, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 12:20-25

May the LORD'S blessings surround you today, and always, and may the courage of your faith sustain you for all the ins and outs of life in this time in our world. Thank you for your continuing prayer support for members of our congregation. Please keep Pastor Ron and Becky in your prayers as they meet the need for some monthly medical treatments while figuring out if they will be able to get to Tucson at all this winter. As this medical care unfolds in their lives, may God surround them with the love and support of their many friends and sisters and brothers of faith. Please pray for my sister-in-law Connie. She is the widow of my older brother who died last year. Connie suffers from Parkinsons and continues her difficult journey with Rick's loss. This past week she moved to Grand Rapids, MI from the little city along Lake Michigan where she grew up, married, and lived her entire life. She wants to be done with life right now. Thanksgiving to God for her son Aaron and daughter Shannon who are helping her make this transition to assisted living in the city where Aaron lives, and just a short 1-and-1/2-hour drive from Shannon. Living with oppressive grief can truly be debilitating.

Our study text for today is Acts 12:20-25. It may seem like a rather short and insignificant passage, and it really appears to have no direct meaning for the journey of our disciples on the surface, but if you remember that long line of Herods that I shared with you last week. Here, once again, we encounter one of them who is the king of Tyre and Sidon. Obviously, this has been a difficult relationship between Herod and the people over whom he reigns. This land north of Palestine is reliant on Palestine for the well-being of their own regions and cities. If Herod kept the trade of Palestine from coming through that area, they would be economically devastated, and even worse, is that the food supplies for this area came to them from Palestine too. These communities appealed to Herod through the king's chamberlain and were granted a public meeting with the king. According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, on the second day of this "festival", Herod appeared in a full robe of spun silver and promptly died on the spot. It seems like a just end for the line of kings who were responsible for the death of the Savior! I have no personal experience, of which I am aware, of this text's use of an angel of God who is responsible for this death, but it would not be the first time that credit was given to God for such a death. Similar reports exist in both testaments of the Bible. After all, Jesus has already claimed that it is the right of the Trinity to be the judges of all of God's creation, including people. How the punishment is given can often be seen as the natural consequences of a person's behavior or circumstance, but that is not to say that God has not caused it to happen. Herod was full of himself, and this particular robe must have weighed an incredible amount. Was it Herod's vanity, his poor cardiac health, or perhaps a stroke? We will never know, but we do know that it is God's right and privilege to bring judgement against the unrepentant sinner, and unfaithful of His children. In all of this where do you and I stand since we know that we are sinful too? We are the recipients of the Spirit's gift of faith, and as we move forward in our faith journeys, we are given the assurance of God's forgiveness through the merit of our Savior, who has paid the price of being the sacrifice for our sinfulness in our place!

There seems to be a little tag on at the end of our passage for today. It moves us back quickly to what is happening in the early church, and the journeys of Paul and Barnabas. God's Word is indeed being shared, and the result is the growth of the new Church, even in the face of persecution from the Jews and Romans. It is in the 13th and 14th chapters that we have the record of Paul's first missionary journey. They departed from Antioch and headed to Cyprus. There they preached at Salamis and Paphos. From Paphos they sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, a low-lying coastal area. Evidently, Paul struggled with his health in this area, and so his party set off overland, and came to Antioch in Pisidia. It is here that the well-being of Paul's party is threatened, so they set off for Iconium which was about 90 miles away from Antioch. Once again, they were threatened, and took the Word to Lystra, and once again they were threatened and moved on to Derbe. They then decided to return and followed the path in reverse which they had followed through Asia Minor, ending up in Antioch once again. The entirety of their journey of sharing the Gospel had taken nearly three years. On their return trip they had some greater success with their preaching in communities where they had been threatened when they began this first trip. This all helps us to realize that it may take more frequent witnessing with someone than just the one time that they reject our hearts for Christ. After all, Jesus never gives up on anyone, no matter who they are. However, we must know that Jesus knows what we do not about that person's future journey of belief but still chooses to seek them through the power of the Holy Spirit to change the trajectory of their living without Him, to living knowing that they must be with Him.

Thank you for sharing with me today. I am with you in your journey too, and so is the Christ of God!

In His Love and Grace, Pastor Kim