Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7 (October 13, 2025)

October 13, 2025:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 6:1-7

May the Grace and Love of our Savior give you comfort and peace and strength for this, and all coming days.

Good morning my dear friends! Our church council met yesterday at American, and one of our business items had to do with homeless people around our building at night, and disturbances which they are causing in the neighborhood. The church property has been trashed, and human waste has had to be cleaned up. I started last night to make evening rounds of the property close to 7PM, and I was back again this morning making certain that no one is having any problems with this group of approximately 10 unhoused people. We will be working to make our property more secure. This is a real problem for us because we are called to be Christ for all people, but we are also called to be stewards of the church property, creating a safe atmosphere for members and building use communities who are on our site during the day and the night.  Please keep this situation in your prayers. Please also pray for Kandice Kartchner and her wife Lisa as Kandice is now in the final stages of her cancer taking her life. Offer prayers of support and love for this family in this difficult time. We are having a yard sale this Saturday to help support their family as many unplanned expenses will come to them soon. Hours are 8AM - 2PM on October 18, Saturday, at American Ev. Lutheran Church on Tucson Blvd. All proceeds will be sent to the Kartchner family in Hawaii. I know that there is plenty of "bad" in the world today, but our good news is that Teri Hardy has had her special hip replacement surgery and is now in rehab to regain strength and learning how to move with this new prosthetic. Please pray for her continued healing. Thanks for your patience in my absence during my vacation to Colorado. We had a wonderful time with our son and his wife, and friends that we have known for 25 years who now live there too with their new baby girl.

Today we are in Acts 6:1-7 in our Bible Study. In our passage for today we encounter the normal everyday issues which happen in businesses and organizations. There are no perfect places to work, worship, and live. Of course, the same was true for the new Christian community in Jerusalem. At this time in the new church, her members were from a wide variety of backgrounds. Those who believed were gentiles, radically conservative Jews, moderate Jews, as well as others from a variety of mid-eastern locations, gathered in Jerusalem for business and life. The problem that arises in this passage is that there was a historic dislike for the gentiles by the conservative Jews, and this group of Jews was not happy with the other Jews who had become members either. So, the complaint in this passage has to do with the distribution of aid to those families and homes where there just weren’t enough available resources to live from day to day. In the Jewish traditional faith home, there was a Friday offering made to aid those in need in their community. It could be food, money, or clothing. This happened every Friday, and it seems obvious that the new Christian community had chosen to continue this program as a good way to provide equity for their own members. BUT THERE WAS A PROBLEM! There were conservative Jews helping to run this distribution, and they tended to leave out the same level of aid that have been given to their own conservative Jewish Christian community. Of course, this could become an issue of division for lack of care in this new community. So, the disciples step in and select people of faith from the community who would then handle the fair distribution of aid. The Apostles were busy in the faith community doing the important work of prayer, healing, and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to try to manage this issue on their own. So, they selected men of strong character and faith to handle this on their behalf. This passage is a great source of information for us. The variety of Spiritual Gifts that are in our communities is meant to be identified and called into service to take on the issues for which their Spiritual Gifts are suited. Just stop and think for a few moments about your gifts, not just the ones you think you know about yourself, but more specifically the gifts which others identify in you. The men who were called to handle the issue of irregular distribution because of bias and dislike, had truly important work to do in their community in Christ. Please know that your gifts are important too!

Thank you for being with me this morning. I will be back to share with you again tomorrow.

With Love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 33 (October 2, 2025)

October 2, 2025:  Thursday Bible Study on Old Testament of Psalm 33

Good morning. I am really happy to indicate that people we have been praying for are seeing the result of our prayers support in their lives. Larry, who had a tough time over back surgery, and an extended rehab stay, is now home. Jeff, who had surgery on this shoulder which involved some nerve bundles, had good surgery and is now recovering at home. Teri, who has been waiting for months to have a new type of hip replacement surgery, had successful surgery yesterday, and will be home in a couple of days to continue her recovery. Lisa in Hawaii has also had some really good news about one of her health concerns. Tests have shown health for her in this first round. So, we have plenty to thank God for this week, but of course we now need to pray for our federal workers who are jobless or working with no pay while congress and the president try to find some common ground on health care. Peace is a massive concern, with it looking like the Ukraine/Russian war may well expand in the Europe, with incursions over sovereign boundaries by Russia may cause tensions to get worse than they are already. Pray to for peace between the nation of Israel and the Palestinians. 66000 deaths in Gaza is too much! In fact, peace could have come at a much less costly past. Thank you for your prayers. They really help.

Today's Psalm study in chapter 33. This is a Psalm filled with praise for God, confidence in God's will to sustain and hold the Hebrews protected from their enemies, and God's power and might to deal with any enemy of David's. It seems a rather long Psalm for this small amount of information, but it is in this Psalm that we can begin to see a guide for how to give praise to God, and how to trust God when things are not going as Israel had hoped they would.  Like David we usually do a really good job of worshiping with joy and the celebration of God's benefits and victories that have already happened. The tougher one is to remember that same joy when things get tough remembering His faithfulness. Falling away from God is easy to do, in our world it seems easier to depend on money and power for our help, but these really do fail when we are not centered in Christ's presence. All those other "gods" cannot ultimately hold our physical issues as we near death. David knew that there was only one source of that kind of protection, and it is God. When everything seems out of control, we must remember that God is always in control, even when we think that God has done something less that necessary to keep safe. The simple fact is that God knows what's coming, and choices today, that we are guided through, or the ones that we make on our own, all must be made to fit into God's plan for His whole creation. God loves us, and He stays in control out of His love for us. You and I do not know how God will choose to move His creation closer its fulfillment. What we do know, along with David and the faithful Hebrews, is that God remains steadfast throughout this life, and into the next. How trusting are we today? We always need to allow God into every situation and circumstance.

Thanks for being with me this morning. With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

There will be no Psalm Study next week. I am on vacation with my family. This Sunday is Gospel Music Sunday, and our Mexican carry-in dinner after worship.

Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 5:33-43 (September 30, 2025)

September 30, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 5:33-43

Good afternoon my dear friends. May the Love of Christ our Savior, surround you throughout today, and always. I am apologizing that today's Bible Study is late getting out to you. I have had a virus of some sort that started on Monday morning and has continued today. I am very achy and apparently exhausted from hours of sitting in my recliner doing a lot of nothing. So… I slept in this morning!

Today please pray for Debbie's husband Jeff as he has surgery. That is happening right now as I write this study. Also keep Teri in your prayers. She has her hip replacement tomorrow. It is a new procedure with a custom manufactured hip to fit her exactly. Her surgery will take 6-8 hours tomorrow. Please also pray for Ron and his brother Chris as they return from taking care of their brother's estate on the East Coast. God's speed for them as they return home via San Antonio, Oregon, and then finally back home to Tucson. Their brother worked at the Pentagon and was there the day of the major terrorist attack that included a plane flying into the building there as well.

Today we continue in chapter 5 of the Acts of the Apostles. Surprisingly we are met by Gamaliel who was not a supporter of the Jesus cult disciples, but who felt strongly that by acting against what the Sanhedrin did not fully understand could place them in a situation where they are acting not just against the disciples of Jesus, but against God Himself, thereby placing them in opposition to YHWH at a time when there was already enough upheaval at the hands of the Romans.  Once again, the Sanhedrin lets them go. The passage then goes on to talk about all the people who were jailed or killed who proclaimed themselves to be the Messiah of God. And as we know, Christ's disciples were not immediately destroyed as they claimed not their own priority in the world, but that of their resurrected Master. Of course, eventually these disciples did die, some at the hands of the Romans, and others at the violence of their own people, and several of old age. However, in all their lives they only proclaimed Christ as the heart of their belief, and as His witnesses, they knew that what they shared with people was the absolute truth. Serving the Truth of God, meant that they also had been kept safe by Him over the years of their lives. Not only would they themselves bear the cross of Christ, but they would also bear His crown then, and on into their eternal life.

The heart and core of this passage is about what happened when others tried to take the mantle of reform and renewal in the Jewish community. They were jailed, or destroyed, which proved that they were not who they claimed to be. Today in the Church, (church too) there are many different denominations who claim Christ as their Lord and Savior. However, the "truth" that some share is often fed by the judgement of God for all who do not meet the human rules set for what one must do in order to be saved, and these rules are all too often based on how God responded in the Old Testament to those Law breakers.  Often punishment was the result of poor choices, and the subsequent consequences of those choices. Too often the Gospel of Jesus' Grace and Love and Forgiveness for all His children is the last thing that the "truth tellers” get too. In fact, their claim is that a person must earn God's Grace and Christ's promise. Instead of focusing on the Old Testament, where it seems easy to make God out to be a vicious judge, in our corner of Christianity we first bring the Grace and Love of Christ as our center. This is for all people! It is Christ and the Spirit who bring forgiveness and establish faith in the lives of people. We come to see Jesus as our loving Savior, and yes, the only one who has the privilege to judge people, not that preacher who preaches hell and damnation if you break that rules which they have gleaned from the Old Testament.  I think that is so often why those Old Testament centered Christian communities believe themselves to be better before God than anyone else ever could be. And by the way, arguing our sense of Grace and Faith, based on Christ's Word will rarely succeed in helping those very Old Testament centered faith communities to see the light of Martin Luther's understanding of the overpowering gifts of God's Love for everyone.  That is why in October of every year we proclaim from our churches that we are saved by the Word, by Grace, and by Faith alone. No act of ours, without these things, brings us to merit forgiveness and salvation.

Reminder:  No Bible Studies next week. I am on vacation. This Sunday is Gospel Music Sunday, and the carry in meal themed Mexican. I hope I get to see you at Church this coming Sunday. with Christ's Love, Pastor Kim