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