Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 16:6-10 (April 28, 2026)

April 28, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 16:6-10

Good morning, dear Bible Study participants. I’m really loving these cool late April mornings. Jesse and I are out at about 5:30AM on his way to work. Now it is even daylight before we leave the house. Please pray for peace in our world. Pray for resolution of the U.S. Iran war, so that so many countries can receive the products that are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Pray for the Ukraine and Russia in their war. Bring cooler heads and wiser choices to those who are working to bring that war to an end. Is it any wonder that we are still faced with brokenness and sin that drags our world to its knees as people attempt to fill their desires for other nations to be just like they want them to be. There are good people and difficult people in every part of this planet. We are all God's creation, and at its inception God saw that it was all the way that He wanted it, then came the garden and freedom of the will.

Perhaps there is some of that in our passage for today about Paul's decisions and choices about which parts of the world will not receive the Gospel message that he offers. First, it is the Holy Spirit who guides Paul not to go to Phrygia and Galatia, though we certainly know that at least one of these places will receive a letter from Paul later one. Next, we are told that it is Jesus Himself who stops Paul from entering the Bithynian area, and instead to move on. Finally in our passage for today, we find that God has given Paul a vision in which a man is calling to Paul to come to Macedonia because they need Paul's help. How are we to understand that Paul is guided away from those first areas and places and moved to a place where he is ready to go forward based on his vision from God? When I first interviews for a call in Tucson, the Bishop told me that there were 5 open ELCA congregations at that time. My first, and only interview, was at American Ev. Lutheran. In the case of a call process, God guides His people in three ways. First, the Bishop, through prayer and the guidance of the Spirit, selects who will interview in each congregation, trusting that the answers which the Spirit has given are right and good. Next, I came to American to interview, praying for the Spirit's presence as I heard from the call committee, preached a Sunday sermon, and remained on site while the Spirit guided the congregation to decide if I was God's provision for the church in Tucson. 35 years ago, I had an experience of the fullness of grace which existed within the congregation. Obviously, I chose to affirm the congregation's Spirit guided call. In some ways this is much like Paul's experience. It is definitely the work of the Spirit who calls Paul away from some communities, and we will probably never know why, (all four of the ELCA congregations I did not interview in are no longer congregations) but it is also the work of the Spirit (Jesus and God) in unity who brings Paul to Macedonia.  This is new territory for Paul, but it is the place to which God has intended Paul to minister and proclaim Christ as Lord and Savior. It is that very same feeling that I had when the call to American was offered, and even though those other congregations were looking for a pastor too, I knew I was to be the servant of the Gospel in our congregation. At that time, I had no idea that I would be proclaiming Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior in the same place for 35 years! However, I am convinced that I am who the Spirit always had in mind for the American congregation. I am confident that Paul knew the same thing.

Have a lovely day. Let's hope for it to rain later this week. God bless you all.

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 16:1-5 (April 27, 2026)

April 27, 2026: Monday Bible Study on Acts 16:1-5

Good Sunday Evening, or good morning, whenever you can get to this study.

I am writing on Sunday Evening this week to free up some time on Monday. Thanks for understanding. We still have no idea of when we are going to Michigan for our Sister-in-law's celebration of Life, but we are confident that it is coming up late in May, or in early June. I will inform the office, and you when I know the date. Please offer prayers of thanksgiving for the safety of our president, his wife, and the advisors, and all the correspondents who were safe on Saturday Evening.

In our passage for today we are going to begin the second missionary journey of Paul which includes many old stops for him, as well as new ones too. Remember that Barnabas will not be with Paul because of their disagreement about using John Mark to accompany them. Barnabas takes Mark separately, and Paul takes Silas who was one of the men who went to offer the support of the Jerusalem Church to the newest churches which Paul and Barnabas had started on their first missionary journey. Paul and Silas arrived in Derbe and Lystra after five years, to discover a young man from a Greek Jewish Marriage who was strong in his faith. Paul well understood that he would be needing to train a new generation of missionaries, and this young man, Timothy, was an ideal person to take that on. There was one issue, however, Timothy had never been circumcised, so Paul made certain that Timothy was. This would seem troubling to us, since Paul had made it clear, and so had the declaration from the Jerusalem Church, that circumcision was unnecessary for the new Christians who he had brought into the church on his first missionary journey. So why Timothy? It was because Timothy was considered a Jew, his mother was Jewish, and for Paul to have any success with Timothy as his person of youth who would be with him, he must be circumcised for the Converted Jews to accept him. Circumcision was not a requirement for gentile men, but for Jews it remained a requirement. In Timothy Paul had broken down all national barriers for coming into the faith of new Christians, who would be fully accepted by all other new Christians. Even though many of our immigrant churches in the U.S. were often worshiping as separate by their nationality, that is not how Paul presented the new church to the new believers. Timothy's grandmother and mother were women of faith (2 Timothy 1:5) and, when needed Timothy became Paul's messenger. When Paul was in prison in Rome, it was Timothy who delivered the letter to the Philippians. Paul identified Timothy as his beloved son. That should indicate to us that Timothy was of a singular mind with Paul presenting him in every way as the second missionary journey took place. Paul may even have had Timothy in mind to replace him when the time came.

Tomorrow, we find Paul carrying the Gospel to Europe. God bless you, and may you know that you are always Christ's beloved child.

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 15:36-41 (April 21, 2026)

April 21, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 15:36-41

Good morning! Christ has Risen! He has Risen Indeed! Yes, it is still Easter though it’s easy to let go of the fact that Church Year Calendar places the celebration of Easter as a six week-long event in our lives. I know that Christmas seems to be bigger in terms of its impact on our culture and society, but Christ Birth is celebrated in the Church for 12 days. Yes, I know, we are always celebrating both of these world-changing holy events throughout the year! I want you to know that we still have not received word for the date for our sister-in-law's celebration of life, though we are going to be ready to leave on short notice. Please continue to pray for our nephew Aaron, and our niece Shannon, and their families. My brother died one and one half years ago, and now they have to celebrate their Mom's life in so short a time after their Dad's death. I think it would be good if we all chose to celebrate lives while we are still alive. Doesn't everyone deserve to be celebrated for their faith and sense of Christian Responsibility?

Today in our passage, Paul finds it too difficult to forgive Mark for Mark's earlier departure on Paul's first mission trip with Barnabas. However, when Paul decided it was time to leave , he and Barnabas had an argument about bringing John Mark with again, so Barnabas, and his sense of grace and forgiveness, took Mark with him to Cypress to continue the work there, and Paul chose Silas to join him as he journeyed back to all of the communities where church starts had happened to see how everyone was doing.  This was the beginning of Paul's second missionary journey, and as we proceed through the next chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, we will be covering his work in Asia minor and Greece, and even into some parts of Europe in the coming chapters. But we need to get back to the issue that happened in this passage. There are many times when we see in Paul that old pharisaical behavior, with its inherent judgement for others, return in his life. Mark was a young man with little experience on that first missionary journey. Perhaps he was unprepared to take the risks that he had to meet head on with Paul. Maybe Mark was just homesick, or perhaps he felt that with Paul and Barnabas, both strong and knowledgeable in their own ways, that there was little for Mark to do? However, later as Paul continues to reject Mark for the next journey, Barnabas still sees in him a valuable partner for the work on Cypress. Later, Paul will come to understand judgement and grace in a more compassionate way, finally stating that no one has the right to judge another person, and in fact, they don't even have the right to judge themselves. There is only one judge in all of God's creation, and that is Christ. He will judge with love and compassion, and even more, He might tend to be less harsh on us than we would be on ourselves for our failures of life and faith. I think that we could have a really great Sunday class on this topic that would bring many questions and comments. In fact, my new adult ed Sunday class at 9AM will cover exactly this issue in our lives and work for the LORD. It starts on May 10 at 9AM - Faith and Civic Life seeking the well-being for All. How does all this fit into our lives as Christ's children? Do we play a “Paul” and judge others based on our previous experience with them or based on secondhand knowledge of a person or group of people. Yesterday we heard that JFK junior had said at some point that every black child should be removed from their birth homes and turned over to other families (I assume that he meant white families) to be raised properly. Here is a judgement of others certainly based on little direct knowledge, and without admitting that there are many other factors that should be corrected that have a dire impact on black families. And just like white children sometimes need to be removed from birth homes, so do children of other races and cultures, but no single racial community, or Anglo community is any better than the others who are faced with such overwhelming hard impacts on their families. Sounds to me like this all fits into our study, doesn't it? In our lives as a family, we met many wonderful people, and their children, when we lived in multi-cultural communities. It is time for Christians to call racists what they are, not to waltz around their uninformed, biased, hateful thinking. This is an evil that every Christian should be standing against. As we continue in our study of Paul's second, extensive, missionary journey, we will have the opportunity to see the maturing of Paul's faith, and the changes in how he chooses to approach people who reject the message he brings.

Thanks for being with me today. I hope to see you on Sunday for worship at 10AM

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim