Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 8:14-25 (November 18, 2025)

November 18, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 8:14-25

Blessings and Peace to you on this Tuesday morning. Yesterday's study did not happen as I continued to recover from an illness over the weekend, including Sunday, and I spent much of yesterday sleeping. I want to thank you for your prayers. Please pray for Lisa who is having testing and surgery for a possible pre-cancer condition, or for an existing cancer, that the surgery results will be good. Continue your prayers for Teri also, as she continues her long recovery from her major hip replacement surgery. It was a new type of replacement that needed much more extensive surgery. Give thanks for Teri's progress so far. This coming Sunday is the last Sunday of the Church Year. We will celebrate Christ's Kingship in all creation and prepare to begin the Church Year season of Advent on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. What really happens in the transition at the end of the Church Year, is that we move to a new set of Gospel passages which we have not used for the last two years. Starting with Advent 1, we will be in lectionary series A. If you haven't been able to get to church regularly, Advent is a great time to get started again. Please take that into consideration as you deal with your personal schedule on Sundays. Bell choir will be playing a new festival piece this Sunday for Christ the King. Your presence at worship is important for your relationship with Christ. So please get started once again and become a person whose life is fed with Grace, Forgiveness, and the certain Promise of Eternal Life. The comfort, courage, and this peace of Christ's is an amazing gift for our everyday lives.

Today we are continuing in chapter 8 of the Acts. Luke, who is the likely author of the Acts of the Apostles, helps us to see how the Life of the Gospel story was spread throughout Judea, and as our passage today shows, its close neighbor to the north, Samaria. This is an amazing reality and meant to inform the whole of we who are faithful, that there are, and will be, unexpected successes when we speak of our own faith, and the power of God's Love for His people and His creation.  But as we might suspect, there were also problems with those who felt the gift of Grace that the Apostles and witnesses brought could be bought, rather than the conferring of the Holy Spirit that came to that changed heart and mind that had responded to the Good News about Jesus Christ that was being proclaimed in, and around, the towns and village of Samaria.  There is one issue about which I would like to speak with you. The disciples felt that people claiming their belief in Jesus as the Savior, was not enough. They looked for outward signs like speaking in tongues. However, Scripture makes it noticeably clear that it is only by the presence of the Spirit that belief can exist. So, the people who heard the witnesses and came to believe, were indeed moved by the Holy Spirit of Christ, and the Baptism and laying on of hands and signs which the disciples saw as so necessary, were more importantly, the outward sign of that inward conversion.  I think that we would be naive to think that Baptism can occur in only one way, though certainly the most common which we saw many times in the letters of Paul, and which were initiated at least in its form from the ritual washing that John the Baptist did in the Jordan River for the confession of Sin.  In Christ, coming to be Baptized by the Spirit's encouragement and gift of faith, or converted by the Spirit in heart and mind, all brought new believers into the community of the faithful in the new church. However, what could not happen was a person buying their way into the community. It could only happen by the Spirit's gift of belief. Throughout the history of the Church, there have been uber rich and powerful people who have felt that they have a right to be a part of the Community of Christ in the world, but unlike those who entered by the Spirit's action in life, those hearts and minds were really only trying to manipulate their way into the good graces of God's Son, rather than to confess and atone for their brokenness, escaping having to do any of that because of the money they had paid.  Giving must always be a gift of thanksgiving for all that Christ has done for us. He is the one who paid the price for sin, and though some try, no one can cover the price by anything that they can do. We are saved by Grace through Faith in Jesus Christ alone! The Simons of this world are still trying to escape conversion and change of heart, so that they may continue to live in their sinfulness without worry. In fact, the name Simon has evolved a new word which is not particularly good. Simony is the illicit buying of ecclesiastical offices!

Thanks for being with me today. May God hold us in His Care.

With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim