Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 4:1-4 (August 26, 2025)

August 26, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 4:1-4

Good morning on this first comfortable morning in a long time here in Tucson. I pray today that your lives will be filled with the Joy of knowing Jesus Christ as your LORD and Savior, and that the difficult things that seem to come our way, sometimes every day, will seem less significant because the Christ of God has surrounded you with the Holy Spirit, and She is always actively seeking to strengthen our faith so that we might move from day to day with confidence in the power of our LORD to really care for us.

Please pray for Robert this morning. He had hernia surgery yesterday morning and was home already by late afternoon. His pain levels are high, though his doctor has given him meds to help with that, and Robert's recovery period may be quite long after this surgery. I had this same surgery shortly after Melody and I were married, and at my tender young age I was out of my teaching work for a month before I could get back to being on my feet for more than a few minutes. Please hold Larry in your prayers too as he recovers from back surgery, and some struggles with the anesthesia, especially with the amount used. Prayers for safe travel for our members who are active this summer away from Tucson.

This weekend we have several activities taking place. On this Friday we will meet at the Cheesecake Factory at Tucson Mall for the Foodies of Faith at 11:30AM. Our former member, and now the Pastor of Sierra Ev. Lutheran Church in Sierra Vista, Kurt Fangmeier will be with us for Friday's lunch. If you have yet to sign up and want to come, please call the church office not later than Thursday afternoon by 4PM. Sunday morning at 9AM we will have our Coffee and Donut fellowship in the Narthex. If you are coming, please bring donuts or cookies or fruit to share. See you there at 9AM. A reminder that next Monday will not be a Bible Study Day. It is Labor Day, the offices of the church will be closed for the day, and I will be spending the day with Melody and the boys.

Today we move on to the fourth chapter of the book of Acts. I suspect that we are not surprised by what has taken place after the bold preaching of Peter at the temple. Peter's proclamation has moved many to reconsider their role in the persecution, suffering, and death on the Cross of Jesus. Of course, who would be present at the temple to hear this preaching, and then to feel threatened by it? Peter's words moved many hearts, but the temple authority may have thought that they had gotten rid of the one who would stand in their faces and tell them the wrongs of their work! Now Peter is doing the very same thing! He is convincing Jews and proselytes alike to move toward accepting exactly how important and Holy Jesus really was. At the time of this the leaders of the temple needed to be careful about these things due to Pilate placing all the responsibility on the temple leaders for Jesus' death. And then comes Peter's other piece of this life-changing message. Jesus has been resurrected and is alive! So, Peter and John are arrested and restrained overnight, when most of the people at the temple today will be busy with their work. The place where Peter spoke was an area where those who were seeking more information and were hoping to be transformed by the message of the Law and later many added laws for how to keep the great law of the Commandments. We must wonder if Peter perhaps thought that he and John might already meet their demise with this arrest. It is likely that both the Temple Police and the Sadducees would have been present while Peter preached. The Sadducees were a group of very wealthy men who DID NOT believe in the resurrection of the dead. Their presence was, likely, for the purpose of discerning whether there were others like themselves, rich and powerful, and even more, they would have been concerned that any change in the belief of these newbies would pull them away from contributing to the growing wealth and power of their own class.  Their approach would be to hone their relationship with the Romans for financial gain, to maintain the integrity of the orthodox teachings of the temple to keep everything the same as it had historically been, and to grow their power and authority in the community. 

Of course, what is coming is very reminiscent of the trial of Jesus. When we read ahead for next Tuesday's study, we will find Peter and John being questioned by the authority of the Sanhedrin. You will see when you read Acts 4:5-12 for next Tuesday's study.

God bless you and keep you always in His care and Love. In Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 3:17-26 (August 25, 2025)

August 25, 2025:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 3:17-26

Good morning my dear friends in Christ! Please join me in prayers for rain today and tomorrow. The monsoon has been very dry this summer. In fact, our rain totals are only 50% of the normal monsoon this year so far. In our other prayers, let's pray for peace in the Middle East, for our LORD to break into the hard hearts of the government of Israel, that the wholesale murder of Palestinian peoples in Gaza might stop. Starvation and death will be a terrible historic time which will never be forgotten as a time of great evil and the death that it often wields without care. The war in Ukraine is not much different. Suits for peace are falling on the deaf ears of the Russian government as they continue to act with violence toward the Ukrainian people, with a mind to annex portions of sovereign nations who just happens to have a seaport that the Russians desire. Here too there have been countless deaths on both sides of this war, and the Ukraine is now a nation with so much damage that it will take the world to help them rebuild. Pray for peace in these lands that seem so far away from us.

Today’s study takes us on one more step in the growing trust that Peter must speak to the crowds, knowing that the presence of Christ is with him at every turn, and in the face of what might be persecution and death for both him and John.  There are several characteristics of early Christian preaching for which Peter creates a model.

1. At its beginning Peter's message is filled with words of mercy, and of a warning for the people about their role in the death of God's Son, the Messiah. Though ignorance was the cause of the action against Christ which they demanded, now there is no longer an opportunity for that very same ignorance to continue.

2. The obligation which this knowledge now brings is that the people, and the individuals, must repent! And then to allow the Spirit to create in them a change of heart for the actions that they had perpetrated against Jesus, the Messiah. They must turn in regret and to be open to that change of heart, a gift of the Spirit, which will pull them more strongly into this merciful and loving relationship with the Messiah who they have destroyed.

3. Repentance has certain consequences. In this case it will be to step forward from the burden of what they have done and enter in the new future that the Messiah has given them through His death on the Cross, Freedom from the burden of their old, and oft repeated sin.  In all this the sinful notes of the past, the present, and the people's future will be affected.

4. The next great good news that Peter offers is that the Christ of God will come again! Though the meaning of exactly what that means has still been a mystery for thousands of Years, and yet it really does point to the future impact of the Son of God who was crucified at their hands. This means that there is an intentionality of God for how the world and future are going to move forward.

5. Peter calls upon the Jews to look to their own Scriptures and the words of prophet after prophet about what would happen when the Son of God, the Messiah, would come, and Jesus was that long promised Messiah!

6. Peter reminds the Jews that they have a preexisting status with God. They are the chosen ones of God!

7. Peter next reminds the people that their being chosen was not for special honor, but rather for special service. You and I know this one too. We are all called to be evangelists who carry the good news of Jesus Christ in our hearts, and on our lips.

   
   

God bless you on this beautiful day filled with the Love of Christ for each of our lives.

With the Love of Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 3:11-16 (August 19, 2025)

August 19, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 3:11-16

May the Love of Christ surround you today in all the places of your lives, most especially in the places that are emotional fires, frustration fires, uncontrollable health fires, and in any other places that are consuming of the goodness of the Spirit's gift of faith. 

On Sunday we heard from our sister in Christ, Alice, that both she and her daughter-in-law were suffering with depression. Their care, even with Christian's help, for the children in the family, two of whom have serious autism coping and learning issues, plus Elody's and Christian's new twins, has become very difficult for the family. Please pray for this family, who we have come to love so much, that they find the resource of their faith in Jesus Christ more than adequate to help with their depression, and bring to them the resources that they need in answer to all our prayers for this situation. 

Peter and John find themselves too in a circumstance that might be too difficult after they have healed the disabled man in the Beautiful Gate of the Temple in Jerusalem. The very people who called for Jesus' crucifixion are now acting like they are unable to comprehend what has just happened as word has reached into the temple and the people there have rushed to the colonnade of Solomon to find out how this came to be.  It is also likely that some of the people who are seeking information are the ones who accused the Disciple of being drunk at 9 in the morning on Pentecost. We must admit that there have been things happening around the miracles of Christ, His crucifixion, and Jesus' Resurrection that have probably shaken the people as they wonder what might come next. And here it is. This man who they have thrown a few coins at or ignored completely in his infirmity there in the "Beautiful Gate" is now walking, jumping, and rejoicing in their midst. How ironic that for years this man had been there, in need of more than a few coins, and yet now in what has really become the Beautiful Gate he has been healed by the power of Jesus Christ, and Peter's faith in Christ's continuing presence with love for all His children.  At the end of yesterday's study, I commented on the fact that the only words spoken were about the power of the Resurrected Christ to bring about this healing, and they were spoken only to the man who would be healed by those very words.  In our text for today we see Peter's claims to his Jewish brothers, and sisters, if there were women in that area of the temple, that what is happening in their midst, is the power of the Resurrected Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who God sent, and whom they destroyed.  It is His Power and Grace which has restored wholeness to this man who has been healed. And finally, Peter says that he and John are both witnesses to Christ Resurrection, and bearers of the power of the Messiah's faith which lives on even for the people who were responsible for killing him when the offer had been made to set Him free!  Here in this reading we cannot, and must not, forget that it is the sin of the people which placed Christ on the Cross, and yet, even in the face of that sin, in which all people share, including the physically disabled man in the Beautiful Gate, Christ, through his perfect faith, chooses life for all sinners, instead of the death which is deserved.  Remember we continue today knowing that our sin still needs the Grace and Sacrifice of Christ so that we might be made right with God, knowing that the victor over the darkness of sin has come once and for all, and defeated it permanently. I have one more thing to say to you today. The Beautiful Gate in our lives is the living Christ, the Son of God! In this Gate, Jesus Christ, we are the victors over sin through His Love and Sacrifice for us. Peter's words to those who were worshiping and praying that day affirmed their guilt but offered them hope through Christ.

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

A reminder: No Psalm Study on Thursday this week as we will be home in the middle of the night from taking Logan Burt and all his needed clothing, computer and printer, and cold weather gear up to Flagstaff and NAU where he will be attending college this fall.  Keep us in your prayers for God's speed and safety in our journey.