Welcome to the St. Martin's Adult Bible Fellowship Prime Timers Web Site!

We meet each Sunday in the Payne Education Center, rooms 207-209 in between the 9 and 11am services from 10:10 to 10:50. You are invited to join us! The next two weeks all the St. Martin's Adult Bible Fellowships take a break due to Christmas and New Years. We all wish you and all of yours the very best for this wonderful time of year. Merry Christmas! See you next year! This page will be updated with readings from our study guide, "Christ, the Image of God" so come on back each week to check us out!

The Nativity, by Federico Fiori Barocci, 1597, Oil on Canvas. At the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Walking in the Light

Pete Seale led the Prime Timers in our passage from 1 John. There is some speculation that this was written by a disciple of John, but early Christian communities cherished this letter, along with 2 and 3 John, as personal and practical guides to Christian faith. We can assume that it is an authentic communication sent by a pastor or teacher to proclaim the gospel.

Pete discussed the first part of the reading by focusing on the phrase from 1 John 1:5 "...God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." Either we walk in the light or stumble in the darkness. But who among us is perfect? While we like to think of ourselves as good people, how many times have we hurt someone, maybe with cross words or a hurtful comment? Pete, and John, remind us that our religion provides for forgiveness. If we stumble we can be forgiven, (1 John 2:1) "...we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One."

Pete concluded with this short benediction from Jude 24-25, after which he dismissed the class:  Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leaders

St. John from the St. Martins New Church Stained Glass Windows.

The Lesson for Sunday, December 24th is titled "Receiving the Word"

Key Verse:  John 1:14

Focus of the Lesson:  People need to feel that God is with them. What does it mean for God to enter our world? John suggests that in Jesus Christ, God entered into human experience as a human in order to bring humanity back into relationship with divinity.

The reading is John 1:1-18 This text is from the New International Version^®.

Background Scripture:  John 1:1-34

   ¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning.

   ³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴In him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

   ⁶There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. ⁸He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. ⁹The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

   ¹⁰He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹²Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

   ¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

   ¹⁵John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " ¹⁶From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. ¹⁷For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.


NIV®