Happy New Year from the Prime Timers!

Prime Timers, a St. Martin's Adult Christian Education (A.C.E.) group, also known as an ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship), is for people in the Prime of Life, ages 50-64. We meet in the Parlor near the Church Offices each Sunday from 10:15am to 11:00, where we are following a course of study from the United Council of Churches titled The New Testament Community. You are invited to join us as we explore a new unit entitled "Human Commitment" with readings from the Old Testament.

Next week is the Houston Marathon!

Its just a small challenge to make it to St. Martin's on Marathon Sunday and I'm sure you can handle it. Watch for The Star this week, it contains an insert with a dashboard poster and maps on how to get through the roadblocks. If you don't get a Star you can print the poster and maps from the St. Martin's home page. Let's all pray for good weather and health for our Houston Marathoners.

Prime Timers Celebrate Good News!

We celebrate our members Good News at Prime Timers with a $1 contribution to Henny Penny, our Good News chicken. Periodically Henny donates the money she collects to a worthy charity, currently the Amistad Mission in Bolivia. George told us about a cruise his family took, highlighted by his nine year old grandson throwing up at dinner. I guess you had to be there! Janet is involved with a charity "Mothers Against Cancer," now in it's twentieth year, and over Christmas they raised $280,000! Our teacher Donn was recognized for having practiced law for fifty years. No lawyer jokes please.

Rahab Helps Israel

Donn Fullenweider taught class today. As some background for our lesson's story of Rahab the prostitute, Donn cited James Kugel and his book "How to Read the Bible":  (Chapter 22, p365) "Although the Bible relates that Joshua led the people into the Promised Land an triumphed over the native Canaanites, archaeologists and biblical scholars read the story somewhat differently." (p367) about Rahab "A puzzling incident, to be sure; at first it must have seemed somewhat mystifying that the Bible should have presented a prostitute in a heroic light at all. Still, Scripture often spoke cryptically, and this story seemed full of hints--especially to early Christians who thought of Joshua as a foreshadowing of Jesus.  That this Jesus should have established contact, through his emissaries, with the very model of a sinner seemed to say much about the church itself:  Her name is Rahab. Now Rahab means 'breadth' [in Hebrew]. What breadth is this if not the Church of Christ, composed of sinners and harlots? It is this breadth that accepts the spies of Jesus.  --Origin, Third Homily"

Some early Jews and Christians tried to obscure the fact that Rahab was a prostitute, and that Joshua's spies might well have been customers. The first century historian Josephus called her an innkeeper. But the genealogy in Matthew of Jesus identifies her as the mother of Boaz, whose father is Salmon. In the book of Ruth, Boaz and Ruth where the parents of Obed, the father of Jesse, David's father. This would make Rahab the great-great-grandmother of Kind David! Matthew's entire genealogy was to establish Jesus in the lineage of David.

Rahab was in a dangerous position and made a significant commitment. If Joshua's conquest failed Rahab would be in a very bad position. As it was, she made the right decision for herself and her family. Donn asked the class for examples of people who turned around their lives and made a difference in our Christian heritage. Bill Graham began life not wanting to attend church services and became perhaps the major evangelist of the last century. Charles Colson went to prison for participating in the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration and now is devoted to a non-profit organization call the Prison Fellowship. C. S. Lewis was an atheist until he turned 180 degrees and proceeded to write some of the best Christian literature.

Another member citied the signers of the Declaration of Independence as people making a commitment with potentially very bad consequences. Even though they were on the right side of the battle, some of the signers died in poverty, as they were ostracized by some of their neighbors!

Donn asked us to meditate on making commitments, and what we could do this week to make our commitment to Christ come alive. Perhaps you can speak to your children or grandchildren... 

Donn concluded class with a short benediction.

The Lesson for Sunday, January 18th,  is "Joshua Leads Israel"

Key Verse:  Joshua 3:7

Focus of the Lesson: Sometimes people make commitments without assurance that resources to fulfill them are available. From where do the resources come for fulfilling commitments? Joshua committed himself to becoming a leader of the Israelites and received power from God to meet this commitment.

The reading is Joshua 3:1-13. This text is from the New International Version. (NIV)

Background Scripture:  Joshua 3

   ¹Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. ²After three days the officers went throughout the camp, ³giving orders to the people: "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, who are Levites, carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. ⁴Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about a thousand yards between you and the ark; do not go near it."

   ⁵Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you."

   ⁶Joshua said to the priests, "Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people." So they took it up and went ahead of them.

   ⁷And the LORD said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. ⁸Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: 'When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.' "

   ⁹Joshua said to the Israelites, "Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. ¹⁰This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. ¹¹See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. ¹²Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. ¹³And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD -the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap."

NIV