Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 11:1-10 (January 26, 2026)

January 26, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 11:1-10

May the peace of the Lord be with you this morning, and throughout the entire day!

Good morning my dear study friends. It is good to be back with you this Monday. I ask you for prayers today for the Olivas family, former members of American who moved to Phoenix to be close to their daughter's family and the grandchildren. We received word on Sunday, right after church, that Joyce Olivas had become a heavenly triumphant saint after an illness lasting several weeks. Our prayers go out to Joe and their daughter Veronica during this time of grief and loss. May the sure and certain hope of the resurrection sustain them in the days ahead. May the Lord be with them sustaining them in their journey of faith.

Today as we move into chapter 11 of the Acts of the Apostles, we find Peter back in Jerusalem from the amazing success of his preaching the Gospel, and Baptizing Cornelius' household, and even the gentiles who had joined him to hear, perhaps with many questions, this Jewish man who Cornelius had asked to visit in his house hold, and for the first time of which we are aware, performing Baptism for Gentiles who had come to faith in Christ.  However, Peter's reception back in Jerusalem was probably not what he expected. He came home filled with joy and wonder at the work of the Spirit in Cornelius' home, visitors and all! The Christians in Jerusalem who had moved from worshiping in the Jewish tradition at the Temple, were still filled with the idea that to become a Christian one must first meet the letter of the law about circumcision. Without that very Jewish act, they believed that Peter had committed an atrocity in even being in the home of a gentile Roman soldier, let alone Baptizing them before they could be circumcised,  Peter's defense is to recount his vision from God, and to move the formerly Jewish, now Christian, members that the food rules and circumcision were no longer their issue.  All the animals of creation were indeed holy and clean before God, and therefore they were not unclean. Later Paul will have to deal the subject of the eating of food sacrificed to idols, but he comes out in the same place as Peter, with perhaps a fuller understanding of the relationship between food, people, and God. What we really have in this passage is Luke, the likely author, using precious space to reiterate the importance of Peter's vision. Because of this vision, the new Christian cult will not be just another Jewish run faith community. Instead, the new Christian Church will be wholly separate from any requirements to keep any Jewish practices which its former Jewish member might want to keep in place as rules for belonging.

We should not be too surprised by all of this. Now, some 2000 years after all this beginning, we still see our churches and people struggling to see the Church as the place where no one is excluded from Baptism or welcome into the faith community. And, as much as we might like to defend our challenges to people who are different, like my very blue eyed blond Swedish congregation when I was young. Those who looked different, black hair, dark eye color, a darker skin tone, knew how they were or were not welcomed just by the looks of my blond forbears. We have often struggled with GLBTQ+ people who have come into our churches in the same way. Nothing needed to be said, often they were snubbed when they visited, but what brought about a change of heart was when our grandchildren appeared bearing this self-identity, and we loved them and wanted them in the church. And I will say again that today we understand this sexual identity as part of God's creation, because it is present in the lives of other creatures in creation too. What we need to remember is that Peter provided us with a blueprint for welcome and salvation through Christ for all people, since we are all sinners, and not by degree of significance, but rather by the simple fact that every person falls short of the Glory of God due to sin in their lives.  We are called to never judge others, that work belongs ONLY to Christ. Our work is to offer the Love of Christ for all people, and today in Acts, that is exactly what Peter is defending with the Jews who wanted to be judge, rather than celebrating with joy and thanksgiving the receiving of the newest members of the new church.  No one is unworthy of the Love of God in Jesus Christ!!!  Out of Christ's love for us He came and fulfilled every law from God, and in so doing, set us, and all people, free from the burden of sin, showering us with Grace in its place.

You have Christ's Love today, and mine, Pastor Kim