Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 18:1-11 (June 15, 2026)

June 15, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 18:1-11

Good morning, my dear friends in Bible Study, and may the richest blessings of the Father sustain and keep you through this day. Yesterday was a happy birthday for our member Regina. Happy Birthday Regina! I hope that your day was peaceful and filled with the love of your family and husband Roy. God bless you both in your later life journey. Yesterday we discovered a little taste of the monsoon humidity at worship. Courage dear saints in Christ. A little discomfort is nothing compared to the faith lives of our brothers and sisters who surround us every Sunday morning at Worship. Yesterday, our service hosted Evan and his parents. Evan will be doing a medical residency for two years here in Tucson. His Mom and Dad are from San Antonio, TX. I hope that we have many opportunities to share our lives with them over the next several years. God Speed for Evan's parents as they travel home. We have a movie coming up on the 20th, this Saturday. Please join us at 1PM in the Sanctuary. This will be our last movie until September, as the worship space gets hot in the afternoons in the summer monsoon season. Treats are provided unless you want to bring your own. This is a great opportunity to view a current release movie without the cost of a $10 ticket and expensive snacks. Our lunch bunch, the Faithful Foodies, will be going out to The Olive Garden on Friday, June 26, at 11:30. We have a great deal of fun together, good conversations, and grow more closely together every time we go out.  This is the Olive Garden on Broadway near Craycroft. Sign up at Church, or call the office on Wednesday Noon - 4PM, or on Thursdays from Noon - 4pm. If you need a ride to get there, please let us know so that we can make that arrangement for you. Finally, come for coffee and donuts on Sunday, 28th at 9AM. You can bring something to share. Sign up at Church so that our setup will be large enough. Be sure to be with us on Sunday, July 5th. We will sing some patriotic music, as well as our Gospel Music selections for the day.

Today in our study of Acts, we find Paul having moved again. This time he traveled to Corinth, a city of commerce and diversity because of its location and all the businesses there. We know that Paul is there in about 50 in the common era (CE - the little used old AD now) We know that because of a Jew, Aquila, who Paul meets and becomes a part of his household while he works in leather and tent making. Claudius, the Roman emperor has called for all Jews to leave Rome in 49CE. Rabbis were not paid for their knowledge and work in the synagogues. They had to work outside of that very involved religious work to provide for themselves, and Paul, being from Tarsus growing up, was familiar with the many herds of animals and the rural shepherds whose livelihoods required tents in which to live. It seems that his work as a tent maker, and leather worker, certainly fit the bill for where Paul was raised. Paul finds a number of people who become believers in Jesus as the Messiah, and others, gentiles, with no experience of the living God and Judaism. However, he must work to live, and he is confronted by both Jews and Gentiles, and travelers, who are confrontational over his teaching about Jesus. A change comes for Paul. Timothy and Silas come from Macedonia, a place where Paul was deeply appreciated and loved, and they bring him a gift from that community which allows Paul to leave his tent making and begin to work full time in Corinth teaching and preaching. The conflicts become difficult, to the point where Paul is having to withdraw from those conflicts, stops trying to preach in the synagogue, and commits to reaching out only to the gentiles. He leaves the home of Aquila, and moves to the home of Titus Justus right next door to the synagogue, where a believer, the president of the synagogue, Crispus, is a believer in Jesus, so he and his family, along with both Jews and Gentiles, begin to make up the new Christian community in Corinth.  Toward the end of this passage, we find that Paul may have been stressed by all the rejection of his teaching in Corinth and was filled with fear for his life and well-being. God assures Paul of His presence and help and tells Paul to continue with his work with confidence in the Lord's presence and safety. When I first came to American 35 years ago, there was, unknown to me a movement by those who had money authority and power in the congregation, who were moving to remove American from the new then ELCA. It was a tough time for my ministry, and all of the uncertainty which surrounded having moved my family across the country, taking a pretty major salary loss, all of this meant that we could well lose that call in just a few months, because I was not willing to leave the ELCA because of a few uninformed and misled members.  I too had to rely on God's promise and strength to take that group of members on, and to teach and preach the truth that they had misrepresented to the congregation. I understand how Paul felt, and in the years of my pastoral leadership at American, God has always provided the Spirit's care and guidance in my ministry for the Gospel at American, and lifted up some truly faithful, trusting, and loving members who stood with the work of the Gospel that is always before me.

Tomorrow, Paul takes another journey, a third missionary journey. I will be back with you then. With the Love of Christ for His Word and His People. Pastor Kim