Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 17:1-9 (May 12, 2026)

May 12, 2026:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 17:1-9

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. I want to remind you that Sunday worship has been very comfortable. Right now, the coolers are very effective and keep the temperature almost too cool in the Sanctuary on Sunday morning. I also am teaching a Sunday school class this week on "Faith and Civic Life, the well-being of All”. We will meet at 9AM and finish by about 9:45AM. You can certainly come and have a cup of coffee and a donut. Donuts are provided each week for the Sunday school class by Melody and Me. Come and enjoy. This class will be held this week and resumes after we have returned from our sister-in-law's Celebration of Life in Michigan. By the way, I share greetings with you from Pastor Ron and Becky who are home in Eagan and experiencing some wonderful May chilly weather there. We are hoping that we will be able to see them for a quick visit on our return trip from Michigan.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles today, 17:1-9, we once again see the pattern that Paul has established for where, and with whom, he will share the Good News of Jesus Christ. He goes to the place with which he is most familiar, the synagogue. There preaching, for three Sabbaths, and as a former pharisee who is an effective debater of the law and history of the Jews, he presents Jesus Christ to all who are present. Like Philippi, Thessalonica is a community where Paul's preaching and teaching finds him and Silas in trouble once again. Though Paul preaches the truth about Christ, the Jews become enraged, because his preaching has not only drawn some Jews to become followers of Christ, but in an even almost strange way, Paul's preaching is really attractive to the women who are present, and to the gentiles who seem to have latched themselves previously to the Jewish faith community because they are drawn to its One God theology.  It is really the gentiles who are converted to Christianity and drawn away from the Jews who cause the Jewish community to erupt with anger at Paul's success. Apparently, the Jews had come to see the gentiles as their proselytes. (soon to be converted to Judaism) Christianity was more attractive to them, particularly the men, who knew that conversion to Judaism would require a circumcision, and that was most certainly the most unattractive part of a gentile conversion for a man into the Jewish faith. Christianity had no such requirement. If you remember it was only those who were of Jewish heritage who needed to be circumcised as a way of dealing with the more conservative converted Jews who had become followers of Jesus Christ in the Jerusalem church. The gentile men had no such requirement. Of course, the Jews, sought to imprison Paul and Silas and others who were with them, and the name that we find in this passage, Jason, must have been a newly Christianized man who was hosting Paul, Silas, and others at his home. When the mobs, organized by the Jews, came to take Paul off to be tried for what they considered heresy, it appears that Paul and Silas were already on their way out of town, and headed to Beroea, and at the encouragement of the converts they fled in the darkness of the night so that they would be safe.  After not finding Paul, and others who had been with him at Jason's home, the mob took Jason, claiming that he was part of a wild group of people who undermined the authority of Rome in their teachings. It appears that Jason and some of the others who were with him were able to post what you and I would call a bond, and they were released. It is well and good for us to realize that what we have come to believe through the calm of Baptism and Sunday School and worship was not so easy for Paul and others who brought Christ as a new presence into the lives of those who did not want their lives, or beliefs, to change.  Over many generations, missionaries found their work to often be dangerous, and sometimes deadly, for their families and themselves. Paul was certainly blessed by God's protection and speed in his journeys for Christ. You and I should never be discouraged because what we believe and share gets rejected. Sometimes within our own families, our faith does not carry any weight, or with our neighbors and friends, but the work of sharing Christ with others must go on if the world is to be shaped with the love and peace of our Savior and Lord. We must thank God for the success of those who had the necessary courage, who faced the risk, like Paul and Silas did.

With the love of Christ for all people, Pastor Kim