Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 10:9-16 (January 6, 2026)

January 6, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 10:9-16

Good morning, and happy Epiphany, the season of the church year when we celebrate God's revelation of Himself through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the day we lift up the entry of the Wise Men into the life of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, providing them with the means to escape the coming life trials of Herod's action to destroy all the young children in, and around, Bethlehem.  It is only through the gifts of the Magi that the Holy Family is able to take that journey to Egypt. Please keep Kandice and Lisa, and Alexis in your prayers as Kandice's cancer now has her bed bound, with lowering BP and O2 levels. May our LORD surround them with the comfort and peace of His presence as Kandice grows ever closer to joining our Savior in His Eternal Kingdom. This Saturday we will gather at church at 10AM to take down the Christmas tree, and other decorations, and to place banners more correctly for the Season after Epiphany. Hope to see you there. Thanks for the help.

This morning, we move forward in this important and broadening story about Peter's encounter with the Roman Centurion, Cornelius. Yesterday I talked about the tension and fear which Peter must have felt as he responded to the Centurion's call for Peter's presence in his home at the seaport where everything was controlled by Rome. In our passage for today, we have Peter on the roof of the home of Simon, the tanner of leather. It is there that Peter is drawn to prayer in the face of the coming uncertainty of his visit to Cornelius. Obviously, Peter is looking for an answer, or perhaps guidance from God in the face of his own fear. He gets an answer to his prayers, but it is not what he expected or wanted at this time. Instead, it is a vision which God gives Peter three times while he is on the roof praying for the answer that he thinks he needs. It is the vision which is God's answer for Peter. The vision of the creatures of God's creation, and the Lord's command that Peter kill and eat from their midst. This is something new, after all there are plenty of Jewish food restrictions in the body of Jewish Law, and Peter initially claims obedience to them all. The vision is repeated in order that Peter might realize that this is not just about food, but it is even more about what is new in Christ's kingdom on earth. The Old has been set aside by the new! In the newness of Christ there are no limits to be placed on the creations of God, not on any animal or person. The Good News is for everyone. What is ironic is that Peter has been hosted as a guest in the home of a tanner of animal hides. Simon will never be "clean" by the standards of Jewish Law, and yet Peter has stayed with him in his home. A true Jewish person would also never enter the home of a Gentile, Roman or otherwise. The Jewish person would become unclean upon entering the home. It is through this vision that Peter comes to understand and know in his heart, that anything that God deems to be clean, should never be shunned by a person who is now in this new intimate relationship with God's Savior, Jesus Christ.  This is a new understanding for Peter, and it opens him up to a much broader ministry for the Savior. Sometimes I feel like we need that vision to come before us. So often we struggle with the full inclusion of all people in the Body of Christ because we are confident that we must already know how Jesus must feel about them. When we see others in that way, we need to come and reread about this vision for Peter. It changed his life, and his ministry and it will change ours. Inclusivity is the Lord's path for His Church.

God Bless you Today, and Always. With the Love of our Savior, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 10:1-8 (January 5, 2026)

January 5, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 10:1-8

Good morning my dear friends in Christ. I pray that your Christmas and New Years celebrations were times of joy for you and your family and friends. We had 16 for Christmas lunch and desserts, and 11 for homemade potato leek soup and split pea and ham soup on New Year's Day. Now the house is quiet, and our wonderful and beautiful collections of tree decorations, angels, snowmen, Santas, and around our house all the signs of our faith and trust in the child born in Bethlehem who came to save us from our own sin and brokenness, wall crosses, a stained glass lighted church, and our lighted Moravian star that is always on in our living room suspended from the ceiling, our beautiful icons of Mary and her child Jesus that are displayed on our living room and dining room walls, and the batik window hanging of the black Mary and Jesus.  Even when our Christmas decorations are put away again, many of the symbols of our faith will remain present around us throughout the new year. At church the tree and wreaths and some banners will come down this week, yet in our tradition at American we will leave the Creche on the altar surrounded by the wise men and their camels, and the church's Moravian star will remain lit for the season after Epiphany, and banners will hold before us the wisdom of the wise men as they journeyed to the new God sent light that revealed the Christ child, and His place of birth in Bethlehem.  In the Scriptures that are our readings in this season of the church year we find God's revealing of Himself through His only Begotten Son, our Savior and Lord, Jesus. There is such power in the Word for us every day, and our Sunday worship reveals God's Self through hymns, prayers, liturgy, the readings, and the messages that are meant to show us the power of our LORD'S Love for every one of us.  It is that very same power that is revealed for us in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles today!

In our reading and passage this morning we are brought to yet another new and significant way in which the Spirit of God reveals the desire of God for all people, even those deemed to be the enemy of the Jews through the Roman occupation of Israel, to be filled with the Spirit even when they have not been Baptized or taught by the faith of other people about the nature of God's presence with them too.  We can only imagine the fear and back stepping that Simon Peter must have felt when he was approached by servants of a Centurion to come to his home. The equivalent today would be opening your front door to secret service men or women standing there telling you that your presence has been requested by the President in another city where you may have never been! The Romans were never considered good occupiers in the nations that they had conquered, so an invitation by a soldier leader to COME did not feel like a friendly message as Peter received it. The reason for that is about all Peter could know about Cornelius was that he was powerful, leader of a very large contingent of the Roman army, and though Cornelius was a God seeker, he was unlikely to have any kind of complete understanding of the Jewish faith, or most especially, the new Christian faith in Jesus Christ.  I doubt very much that Cornelius' reputation of kindness and generosity would have found its way to Peter in another part of Palestine. Peter would certainly know that he was being called to meet a feared Roman soldier who was accustomed to being obeyed by his troops. What reason could there be for such an invitation (felt like a demand) of Peter's presence?

Later Peter would die at the hands of the Romans, so if we doubt that this must have been a real struggle for Peter, we need to remember how he lost his life in Rome.

Tomorrow we will enter the next section, which will help us to journey with Peter to meet with Centurion Cornelius. What will this gentile want? Will he be a danger to the new Christian community of believers? Will he threaten Peter with the loss of his life? Chapter 10 will help us come to terms with all of this.

God bless you and hold you in his care in the days ahead, and I will be back with you tomorrow morning as we continue with Peter in the uncertainty of this journey.

In Christ's Love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 41:13 (December 18, 2025)

December 18, 2025:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 41:13

For my dear friends in Christ as we approach the end of the season of Advent at the beginning of the Church Year and move quickly on to Christmas and its 12 days of celebration that you know all about God's love for you.   I know that all too often, commercial TV and Radio act as if Christmas ends at midnight on December 25. You will find it hard, even in some churches, to sing carols any longer than Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day worship. I promise that we will be singing carols on the first Sunday after Christmas too. Please remember that I will not be doing Bible Studies during the week of Christmas, nor during the following week when we celebrate the new year. I will be there to lead music and preach on Sundays even though I will be on vacation right after Christmas. I will still be in town. Melody and I are planning some special food and special outings for our sons during that time. The Bell Choir is getting their music put together, the Gospel Group will lead our closing Christmas Eve Carol, and we will have organ for most hymns, and, of course, candlelight and the traditional singing of Silent Night. We will even have a soloist or two singing specials during the service. Please remember to keep our home bound and ill members and friends in your prayers every day, and above all, give thanks to God for the celebration of His Son's birthday. Don't miss this opportunity to take part in the joy of this year's celebrations. Of course, we will be offering the Sacrament of the Altar too. Service is at 7PM.

I know that you are saying that today's reading seems to be short. You are right. After reading of the confidence of the poor, ill, and disadvantaged in chapter 41, we come to its end with this one verse of praise of God in the face of all things that might cause our faith and confidence in God to falter.  But there is another reason for this seeming break which could have been at the end of 40 as well. The Torah, the body of Jewish Law is divided into five sections, and to keep the Psalms in line with that, we have the end of 41 as the end of the first of the five sections in the Psalms. I suppose it might be considered arbitrary, but it is important to the faith traditions of the Jews. Five (5) is a prime number, and that makes it perfect for the dividing of the Law and the Songs in the Hebrew Canon of Scripture which we call the Old Testament. (or the old covenant or contract with God) As we read through this old agreement with God, we come to see God in ways that take us beyond Jewish Law. Indeed, we see God as the God who is constantly acting on behalf of his children, saving them from their stupidity (like in the garden), or setting them free from their imprisonment in Egypt as Moses brings the wrath of God down on the Egyptian people, ultimately forcing them to let the Hebrews go to head off to the promised land.  Even when the wandering Hebrews build an idol to worship when Moses is on Mt Sinai receiving the 10 commandments, God offers a way for them to be saved from the bites of the adders that have come into the midst to harm them for their sin of idol worship.  In the years after the Hebrews are driven out of their land, and imprisoned as slaved in other lands, God ultimately brings his saving grace through the building up of the faith community by the teaching and actions of Cyrus the king to set them free with his blessings.

So here we are now at this division in the Book of Songs (Psalms). After the holidays we will continue into the second section of the Psalms. I want to wish you a very Merry and Holy Christmas for you and your family. May God bless us all in this holiest of times as we celebrate our Lord's birthday in Bethlehem.

I hope that I get to see you at church during the Christmas season, so that we might hold one another dear and precious, sharing our love of Jesus Christ, and rejoicing with the hosts of heaven and singing with the angels of God's Heavenly Kingdom.

With Love in Christ Jesus our Lord, Pastor Kim