Pastor's Ponderings: Monday & Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 23:1-24 (August 31 & September 1, 2026)

August 30, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 23:1-10

To my dear great friends in Christ who are a part of this study on Mondays and Tuesdays each week.  I hope that you enjoyed, and survived, for those of you on the west side of Tucson, the wonderful rain that we had in town at about 5AM.  I drove the van to get our son to work at 5:40AM, and we did that because of its clearance and heavy tread tires which cut through the heavy water accumulation on the city streets.  Please continue to keep Camille in your prayers as she starts her new chemotherapy on the 15th of September.  Please pray too for Teri as she continues to deal with pain and limited mobility after her doctor's use of a new hip replacement technique.  For me, I am still battling allergy issues and headaches, but it seems to be slowly improving, and I am getting full night’s sleep without having to medicate in the middle of the night.  I am going to go see my primary care this week to see what else can be done.  If you were not at church Sunday, you missed the opportunity to meet Carson Lanning and his father Scott.  Carson will begin playing for us starting on Gospel Music Sunday.  That means that I will be able to sing once again, allergies permitting.  This Sunday is our carry-in meal after worship, and the theme is food that you would have liked to have had for your school lunches but instead ended up with things that you didn't care for.

Our passage for today is found in Acts 23:1-19.  In a light read, it seems that Paul has a death wish and is inadvertently causing upheaval as he attempts to speak to the leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem.  In this passage there are a number of things which the reader might not know, unless they have done some in-depth study.  So, what is Paul about here?  Remember that he has been brought here by the Roman commander due to the fact that Paul is a Roman citizen by birth, which grants him certain rights, but when he continues to speak before the Sanhedrin, it is obvious that Paul has some plan in place for how he will move what is about to happen.  The very first thing that Paul does is to address the Sanhedrin as an equal by using the word brethren as he addresses them.  In the tradition of the leaders and Jewish rules, the men in the Sanhedrin should be addressed instead in this way.  "Rulers of the people and Elders of Israel."  However, that is not what Paul has in mind.  Here we discover that Paul is from a multi-generational family of Pharisees, which is why he places himself before this judgement group as their equal.  And when the chief priest calls for Paul to be stuck on the mouth for his words, Paul uses his citizenship as an Israelite to put the high priest in his place, by reminding him in his anger with Paul that " to strike an Israelite man is the same as striking the Holy God of Israel Himself."  This angers the high priest, but then Paul takes it even further and calls the high priest a white wall!  You and I might not understand this as such a massive insult, but what Paul is saying here is that the high priest, who is noted for his lack of holiness and abuses of the people and of his power, is just like the burial site which has been whitewashed, so that no one might touch it and become ritually defiled and unclean.  For us it seems like Paul is digging himself an even deeper hole which he must climb out of or become entrapped.  However, Paul is just getting started.  It is at this point that Paul places into the discussion of the Sanhedrin a topic which was bound to cause upheaval and heavy arguments between the Pharisees and the Sadducees to get into one of their great, heated arguments about who knew what they were talking about.  The Pharisees believed in angels, and the tiniest detail of the Law, and predestination, and the really big one, RESURRECTION!  The Sadducees would have none of it and really thought that the Pharisees had lost their way, and were completely mad to believe in such things, The argument which followed was so violent that the Roman commander was certain that Paul, a Roman citizen by birth, would be torn apart in the midst of what was happening, so he removed Paul to the Roman barracks.  It was indeed Paul's plan to undo the Temple leaders and the high priest because their corruption was publicly evident.  Paul witnessed to their brokenness, and at the same time, made it clear what he personally was about in his mission and ministry.  What you and I need to realize is that Paul's plan worked!  However, this is just the beginning for Paul's proclamation.  In our reading for tomorrow, the very first word, from Christ Himself to Paul, was "courage".   Tomorrow we will take the time to hear what more Christ has to say to Paul about what was coming in Paul's future.

Thank you for taking the time to be with me this morning.  God bless you and keep you safe on this stormy day. 

In Christ's love, Pastor Kim

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September 1, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 23:11-24

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. 

Thank you for being here to share with me this morning on this next text from Acts.  Remember that Gospel Music Sunday is coming up this next Sunday.  That means lots of good music, our new piano player, and great food afterward.  The theme is what you would rather have had for school lunch when you were young.  Please remember that hot dishes need to have an electric heating device if you need to keep them warm (crock pot or warming tray).  Please continue to pray for Regina as she has cataract surgery on the eye that had retinal surgery a few weeks ago.  It will be tomorrow.  My special thanksgiving to God for Debbie taking time out of her busy day to get Regina to her surgery, and then back home afterwards.  I know that Regina is most appreciative.  Melody and I attended a housewarming for Gabriel and Bianca in Rio Rico on Sunday afternoon.   May God bless their lives and their home as they get settled in. 

Today our passage begins where we stopped yesterday.   Paul had to be protected by the Roman soldiers after he confronted the corruption and misuse of the Temple by its leaders.  He also talked about his faith, it many years of missionary success, and then intentionally got a great argument started between the members of the Sanhedrin.  Pharisees and Sadducees didn't agree on much of anything except their authority to judge others, and to take advantage of the benefits of the power they had in their positions leading the faithful in Jerusalem and persecuting the new Christian cult no matter where it showed up.  My last words to you yesterday were Christ's first words to Paul.  "Courage, you have witnesses in Jerusalem, and now you must take your message and faith to Rome to proclaim me there."  This happened a short time after the confrontations in the Temple.  But the continuing wrath of the people in the Temple as they were after Paul, and then the leaders who held a sham trial for Paul. did not seem to be enough in terms of Jewish outrage, an outrage that caused the anger of the Jews to settle in a plot to kill Paul.  Some forty Jews gathered, planned, and reported their intentions to the leaders of the Temple.  None of the forty would eat until they had killed Paul.  You and I need to know that Christ had, and still does have, not only the will to save His faithful children, but the means to make his protection take place.  It was certainly mor than irony that a relative of Paul's happened to overhear the plans of that murderous group of men.  What strikes me so strongly about all of this is that there must not have been even one righteous leader in the Temple.  The leaders heard the plan and made it clear that they would help by calling for Paul to come before them again for a further consideration of his claims and ministry for Christ.  However, Paul's young relative told him about the plan, Paul sent him to the Centurions, and in turn, they sent Paul's young relative to the Commander of the army stationed in Jerusalem to tell him too.  The result was the commander calling together an army of men to accompany Paul to his trial before Felix, the Roman governor of the area.  There is real irony that the leaders of God's elect are filled with wrath and take a position to support the murder of Paul, while the "brutal Romans" are gentile and working hard to keep Paul safe.  I sometimes wonder when the conservative Christians want to destroy people that they deem as unworthy of Christ's love and forgiveness but want it and claim it for themselves.  God's children can certainly get things wrong! It is no wonder that Christ had to come for our redemption.

Thanks for being here with me this AM. 

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim