Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 15:22-35 (April 20, 2026)

April 20, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 15:22-35

For my dear friends in Christ. I am writing this Bible Study on Sunday evening, because we have a complication in our schedules due to the death of our sister-in-law in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday evening. Her passing was not totally unexpected. We do not yet know the date of her Celebration of Life, but both Melody and I are planning on being with our nephew and niece and their families. We have begun making plans to make that happen. Josiah starts at Pima Med Institute in a week, James and Jared are finishing up this school year, with James graduating in late May, and Jesse is working early hours into the afternoon at his job. All of them need to have transportation, so plans are already in place to make certain that can happen. Thankfully, they are very responsible at home and will do just fine in our absence. Mom and Dad just have to be sure that the house is stocked with food for the time we will be away! At some point I will be missing a Sunday worship service, and a scheduled worship may need to be changed around a bit, but I will have music recorded, and a message for that Sunday that we will be away. Please don't stay away because I will not be there.

It is obvious that becoming a witness for Christ, and His missionary, has its complications. Paul and Barnabas have come back to Jerusalem bringing the good news of all the people in Asia Minor who had heard their words of Good News, and had either converted to Christianity, or became Christian from no other religious experience in their lives. But while there, some questions arose by those who would cause problems, both conservative Jews and idol worshipers who believed that more resistance had to be put in the way to disrupt this new faith community. We know that more included things like strict Kosher food rules, circumcision for the men, and following the massive rules of all the additional laws that every good holy Jew must follow to be right with God needed to be strictly followed by these new Christians. So, Paul's and Barnabas' detractors made it difficult for the new converts to be considered members in full of the Christian movement. Off to Jerusalem go Paul and Barnabas to share the truly good news of their successes in proclaiming the Christ, His sacrifice, death, and Resurrection for the blessing of all people with the God's Grace and Love. However, in Jerusalem, when the time came to make some decisions about how the mother Church should proceed, it was to the word of James which the new Church turned, and in his thoughtfulness, James made choices which would satisfy both the moderate new Christians there, and the more conservative Jews who thought that the new converts must do much more.  They made their decision quickly, not waiting on days and weeks of debates, but sent along Judas and Silas to speak the message of the Jerusalem Christians acceptance of these new converts with only a few changes that the new Church felt must be followed. Rather than a letter which might have left the converts feeling like the response was brisk and cold, the message was delivered by these two new Christian leaders with gentleness, kindness, and truth in their warmth in loving the LORD. By doing this the Jerusalem Church made it clear that Paul and Barnabas did indeed have the backing of the Apostles in Jerusalem, and after Silas and Judas left, Paul and Barnabas stayed on in Antioch to continue their missionary work. Sometimes we can tell our newest members that they are most welcome in our community, but it comes down to how they are received by everyone, including the leaders in the congregation. We know that we are a welcoming and affirming congregation for all people, and in order for every person to feel that reality, it is necessary for us to be the living presence of Christ in every person's life in the congregation, both long time members, and the newest members, and all together, the loving grace of Christ shines brightly through each one of us so that the work of the Gospel will be done!

God bless you in all that you are doing to be the people of Christ,

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 52 (April 16, 2026)

April 16, 2026:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 52

Blessings and Peace in the Name, and by the Power, of our Risen Savior. I hope that we can all pray for peace to be established between Lebanon and Israel, and between the Ukraine and Russia, and between our country and Iran. I know that it seems like a lot to ask of God, but with God all things are possible, and since we pray and live with the Holy Spirit in, with, and around us, we must know that we are guided by Christ's Grace, Love, and Wisdom, not only in our praying, but also in our daily living.  So, my invitation to prayer is for each one of us at American to pray for guidance about how we should move forward as a congregation on the site where we have been for 76 years, remembering that we are not ever deserted by our Savior, but instead promised that His Resurrected presence with us is steadfast.

Our Psalm for today is interesting. In the opening verses we have what appears to be a section which could certainly be indicated in Saul, Israel's first king. As he became less and less stable emotionally and mentally out of fear for his place as the king, Saul acted with strength filled with evil and choices meant to steer away from the direction which God had put in place, by calling a simple shepherd boy, friends of Saul's son, a conveyer of calm when he played his harp for his flocks, or to bring comfort to the king who he would replace.  In our lives all people are presented with choices, the consequences of which often appear unseen as choices are made to follow the LORD'S direction, or to set out on an independent direction with little regard for what it means to fall away from the LORD to do something which will be more violent and dangerous, both to its perpetrator and its victim(s).  Saul's terror at losing his kingship resulted in insanity and instability, and eventually, his son would become the second king of Israel, not David (YET!). From the descriptions we have of David, and the Psalms (songs) attributed to him, we discover a man of faith, who since his childhood has attempted, and often found, success in his God guided actions, all of which brought David, and his followers, great blessings, that is, until David decided to act without God's blessing, taking another man's wife for his own, and then arranging for her husband to be killed at the front of a battle in which Israel was involved.  The ultimate consequence of David's loss of his usual faithfulness meant that both he and Bathsheba would lose the son they had conceived in their deceit. It would take great humility and confession on David's part to get restored in his relationship with the LORD. In our Psalm for today we see a pattern of what happens when a leader, probably Saul, loses his ability to remain faithful to God. We must remember that Saul was a much-loved king until his choices brought about his downfall. And even people of faith can make choices that bring about the destruction of everything with which they have been blessed. Of course, we must ask if this is retribution by God as the Old Testament indicates, or if it is the natural outcome of choices which fail to regard and utilize the gift of faith which has been gifted to us by God's Spirit. Sometimes people use a false sense of faith to convince others that they are loved by Christ, and THAT WOULD BE TRUE because Christ loves every one of His children, both those who know and love Him, and those who have no clue what it means to live in faith.  What every one of us needs to remember is that there is only one judge, and it is the Savior! We must all approach our Savior in humility and confession. No one is without sin. There is only one, and that is Christ himself. Our Psalm for today is a revelation of the power of faith to transform the life of the faithful, providing for all of us who accept Christ as our Savior, to see the outcome of God's Love in our lives, and then in those special moments to laugh with confidence in the power of our LORD to help us see that abundant life, as the doing of our Savior, and to know of His constant presence with His children.

Thank you for sharing with me today. Please pray for me today too. I am continuing to battle a stomach bug which I picked up from one of the boys. (They are really men) So I worked from home yesterday and will again today. God bless you all!

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 15:13-21 (April 14, 2026)

April 14, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 15:13-21

Good morning! What a beautiful crisp morning for driving with the windows down, and enjoying the cool, sunny, and calm air today. Please be reminded that we have our free movie this coming Saturday at 1PM in the Sanctuary. Treats will be provided, or you may bring your own, or some to share. This month we will have a romantic comedy; title posted at church. Please continue to pray for our church and her family as consideration is given for a direction that will assist us in continuing the rich ministry of American on into the future. I know that the church council is busy in prayer as well, as we look for the Spirit's guidance in what lies ahead. Pray too for peace, and the cessation of hostilities between nations.

Today we encounter another quiet, competent, Spirit guided leader in the Church in Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas have returned from the mission journeys, and they have come before the leaders of the Jerusalem Church to appeal for the inclusion of gentile members in the Christian fellowship in Christ. Peter has offered words of support for such an action using the forbidding obedience to the law, to which no one has ever been able to adhere completely, and instead, speaking about faith as the primary act of inclusion in the community of new Christians. Faith becomes a reality in people's hearts and minds as a gift of the Spirit. That's true for you and me too! So, it is the action of God's Grace through the Spirit which enables all people who have come to faith to be assured of forgiveness, life with God, and Salvation. Of course, this is a new way for the conservative Jewish Christians to think, and even just one solid argument by Peter in favor of the gentile community of believers, and the many stories which Paul and Barnabas bring from their journeys are not enough to sway the thinking of the more conservative side of the new Church. 

In our reading today we are introduced to James, the brother of Jesus. James is of the highest status in the new Church in Jerusalem, not because he is the brother of the Lord (He did receive a visit from the Resurrected Lord when he was by himself. 1 Corinthians 15:7). James was an extraordinary person of the highest character, the gentlest nature, with a true heart for the work of the Gospel. (Galatians 1:19) From our passage for today, it really does appear that James is also highly respected by both the conservatives, and the moderates in the new Church. James is called James the Just by those who know him best. He worked to rigorously obey the law of Moses in every part of his life, yet he is seen as fair to everyone. When James speaks, he brings to the conversation the power of kindness and grace. Through his words, James indicates that for everyone to include everyone else in the Church, there must be a few things which the gentiles must also observe to be received by the conservative Jewish Christians. They all have to do with food laws, without which, the Jews might well be offended and unwilling to receive the gentiles as brothers and sisters in Christ. First the gentiles must not eat any food, perhaps especially meat, which has been sacrificed to idols because it had never been properly prepared by draining its blood before it was burned on that idol altar. In other words, the gentiles must refrain from idol worship or the practices of idol worshipers. Kosher preparation of meat meant that the blood must be drained before its preparation because the Jews believed that blood was life itself, so for an animal to be truly dead, its blood must be fully removed. All of this was Jewish food laws. This was enough for the conservative new Christians to be able to accept the gentiles into the fellowship of Christ and His Church. We must note that later, as Paul writes his letters to the early church, the question will still come up about eating that meat sacrificed to idols. Paul's answer will be that Christians are not bound by those previously established rules in Jerusalem unless another person is led astray by the action of that Christian person. For Paul, and that appears in just about all things, Christians are free because there are no other gods, and idol worship is the worship of something that does not exist. James, in his wisdom and fairness, finds a common ground on which gentiles and Jews can know unity in the new Church, being welcomed by one another as true believers.

Thanks for being with me today. I am in Christ, secure in the Spirit's gift of faith, and ready to share the Good News of our Risen Savior.

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Pastor Kim