Pastor's Ponderings: Monday & Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 24:1-21 (September 14 & 15, 2026)

September 14, 2026:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 24: 1-9

Good morning, Blessings and peace be with you this Monday morning.  Please remember that we are creating a new email and snail mail Bible Study list for members and friends of American who want to continue receiving the three times each week study on the selected study for that time.  We will begin that study in October.  I believe that we will finish the Acts study by the beginning of the month.

You may sign up at church at worship, call the church office at 520-623-3661, or drop a note to us via email at godsplaceforgrace.org.  If you are a snail mail user, then please call the office on Wednesday or Thursday in the afternoons to be sure your mail will continue.  As of our study this morning we still have not received any information about the congregational vote of Cross and Crown Church with regards to the purchase of American Lutheran's building and property.  I will let you know as soon as we receive any information.

In prayers, please continue your prayers for Camille as she begins her radiation therapy tomorrow.  Also pray for Regina who continues to have work done on her eyes over the next several weeks.  Please also pray with thanksgiving for Maggie's continuing recovery from a fall and cracked ribs last week and pray for Cathy who is battling kidney stones and sepsis as a result.  She is still in the hospital but is doing better.

Today we continue our study of the Acts of the Apostles 24:1-9.  So far, we have seen Paul threatened by the Jewish crowds at the Temple, also by the Sanhedrin, treated fairly by the Roman guard, and not so well by the Governor, Felix who had manipulated his way into leadership in Israel.  Our reading for today is brief, but it is filled with falsehoods and lies, while attempting to flatter Felix, and then to tell Felix what a threat Paul has been to the Jews all over the Roman Empire, as well as, in Jerusalem.  Of course, we know that if there is anything that the Roman appointed governor is afraid of, it is upheaval and rioting on the part of the Jews, basically a loss of Roman Peace due to poor governance.  In all of this, the witness which was brought against Paul made it sound like the Jews in Jerusalem had done many of the things which Paul had suggested, and the leaders had used them to bring change, but Paul was a pest and a threat to the authority of the religious leaders in the Temple.  He incited the people, and unlike what Tertullus had said, Paul wasn't arrested by the religious authorities, the people had threatened to lynch him!   Tertullus also said that Paul was a member, the very ringleader, of the Nazarenes who were a group constantly working for upheaval of the Roman government, and an overthrow of the Temple authorities who in too many ways supported the Romans because the Romans kept the status quo in place.  The half-truths of Tertullus, and his outright lies were dangerous for Paul as he is faced by a quite corrupt governor of the Roman empire.

All of this leaves us hanging about what is coming tomorrow for Paul.  You can read ahead if your curiosity gets you to do so.  Paul must, of course, defend himself in the face of the half-truths of Tertullus.     I will be with you tomorrow morning.  In the meantime, let us pray for one another for Christ's peace and love to carry us from day to day. 

With love in Christ.   Pastor Kim

=============================================================

September 15, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 24:10-21

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. 

Yesterday was quite a weather day in our part of the city.  I had taken the little car to pick up Josiah from work at St Joseph’s Hospital. We heard a little thunder when we left. By the time we got to 22nd street and Kolb the rain began like a wave, and we were unable to see the road or much more than 5 feet in front of us.  We stopped along with everyone else on Kolb.  I finally saw a left turn bay, and decided to turn into our neighborhood, but I wasn't that close yet.  We drove two blocks and stopped because the cross street was at least two feet deep in running water.  We turned around to go back out on Kolb just as the rain and wind eased up, but the water depth was amazing.  We got home just fine though.  Later in the day we found out that our daughter's home and Sharyn B's home on the west side had been hit with a storm just like ours.  Remember, stopping is always best if you can't see, and turning around is the safest move you can make if you are driving. 

The good news today is that Cathy is home from the hospital from her sepsis scare, and glad to be with her dog.  Rio, the husband of Joanna's boss, is also home after his battle with bacterial pneumonia and sepsis.  Both are doing quite well.  Thank you for your prayers, they are a powerful aid to people who are suffering with health issues.

The Church Council should have just received news that Cross and Crown Lutheran Church voted unanimously to move forward with the purchase of American's church buildings and property.  Please remember this does not include Alice's house.  That property will remain with our congregation.  Please remember that as we move forward into this purchase, there will be many questions, and probably many changes too.  May our LORD bless both of our congregations.

Today, our passage from Acts is an accounting of Paul's response to the lies that have been made to Felix the Governor, by Tertullus, who was the representative of the Sadducees sent to try to get Paul released to the Jews who would have taken him back to Jerusalem, and his probable death at their hands.  When we read this passage, we discover that Paul presents himself, not as a person who had come to cause riots, but as a person who brought with him aid for the poor and needy in Jerusalem, and of course the offering for the Christian Church that was struggling so much with finances to continue their mission to the Jews (without much success).  He explains to Felix that none of the issues which Tertullus had raised about him were in any way true.  Of course, we must remember that Felix is interested more in keeping the peace with the Jews, than judging Paul as an innocent for whom the Jews wanted destruction.  There is no doubt that Paul was forceful in his self-defense, but he was also controlled and confident about his story because it was all true.  However, in front of Felix, Paul's truth held little value, so we can know that Paul, in his determination to claim his innocence, has not used every tool that he might have to use to escape being sent back to the Jews in Jerusalem.  It is very interesting to me that even though Christ has been dead for nearly a decade, the action of the religious authorities and people is the same as it was as Christ himself was tried as a heretic and subsequently murdered on the cross.  You and I have not had to defend the faith that lives in us very often, but the day may come when more subversive Christians choose to come after us because we are the community that sees Christ as the LORD of all people, not just some people.  Paul believed in all of the things which he claimed before Felix, but he also knew the power of God's Grace and Love in Jesus Christ in the face of those who were supposed to be ready to receive the Messiah, who would bring them victory and peace, but not in the way they expected.  Too many Christians today are living their lives of faith in the same way, believing that only they truly know who God loves and cares about, and in that belief, that are willing to condemn and destroy those "others" who they believe Christ cannot love or forgive.   My sermon title last week was meant to help all of us remember that we are called to be those who forgive, because we have been forgiven first.  Added to that is Christ's call to forgive 70 times 7 times, meaning always.  How are you and I doing?  Not always well with it, which is why we need His forgiveness every day.

Paul's defense is not done.  When we meet next Monday for this study we will discover more.  Having read the Acts of the Apostles isn't it hard to believe that such a heart filled with love and peace like Paul's, would meet with such destructive sin?

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim