Welcome to the St. Martin's Prime Timers Marathon Web Page.

Today is the annual Houston Chevron Marathon and St. Martins is inside the course. Hardy Prime Timers made it to class this week and we hope you can join us in the future! 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. We are studying the gospel of John with our excellent teacher and parishioner Ben Welmaker.

Max Kech brought some not so good news about the Amistad Mission in Bolivia.

Prime Timer News

Max Kech thought she was bringing a nice progress story about our donation to the Amistad Mission in Bolivia, but instead we have to consider that the children might be at risk. Bolivia is a poor country, currently in the middle of a power struggle between the left-leaning president Evo Morales and regional governors. Morales evidently wants to centralize power in the federal government, and has the support of the coca farmers in the Cochabamba region where the Amistad Mission is located. This is a breaking story and by no means settled. To read what Max received for yourself, you can read the good news and/or the bad news by clicking the underlined words.  We can all pray for the children caught in the middle of this.

On a much better note, Carolyn Maryan announced that former Prime Timer leader Jackie Rose will speak to the Daughters of the King on Saturday, February 3 at 10:00am in Rooms 210-212 of the Payne Education Center. This is our old classroom! Everyone is invited to hear what Jackie is doing and the changes in her life.

Ultimate Fairness

 Today's reading from John 5:19-29 finds Jesus contending with some Jews who find His words blasphemous. Ben Welmaker began his lesson with some context coming from the previous verses. Jesus heals the man who was an invalid for thirty-eight years. This happens on the Sabbath and the Jews, who see Jesus as just another man, regard this as sacrilege. Jesus also called God his father which made things worse.

The reading explains the special relationship of Jesus to the Father. The Jews see this as a sin on the level of Adam and Eve, where Man seeks independence from God. Jesus goes on, however, and says that whatever the Father does, the Son also does. Jesus says that the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does, and that the Father will show the Son even greater things.

Jesus states divine prerogatives, 1. that the Son will raise the dead, 2. the Son will judge all peoples at the end of the age, and the the Father entrusted all judgment to the Son. In the example of the man healed after thirty-eight years of being an invalid, Jesus tells the man to stop sinning or that something worse might happen.

These are pretty strong words, and we can see how the Jews in the temple would me upset by the claims. Even as modern skeptical people we might question these claims. Ben used a quote from C.S. Lewis, made in a radio address in the 1940's. As a web extra here is the entire quote: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

If we are followers of Jesus, are we really doing what He would do? How do we know. One way is to adopt the Episcopal Seven Christian Habits, printed in the next column.

Ben then read our intercessory prayer and dismissed the class.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leaders

*** You can click on these photos for larger versions!

St. Martin's half-empty parking lot at 10am Sunday! Must have been the fog. Or maybe the Marathon.

Runners pass the "St. Martin's Church is Praying for You" sign.

Here they come! The marathon runners had some comfortable weather.

Our sign, seen by over 15,000 runners!

There was plenty of fog this Sunday!

Seven Christian Habits:

1.  A personal, intimate relationship (through the Holy Spirit) with God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ in which I believe and trust in Him and His love for me and for my salvation in this life and the life to come.

2.  Daily personal prayer and weekly worship of God in His Church by which I receive the renewal of my emotional-spiritual energy which I need to live my life.

3.  Regular study of the Bible to understand how God has related to His people and what His will has been.

4.  Adjusting my will to the will of God for me as revealed in Scripture, prayer, worship and my relationship with Him.

5.  Service (which is ministry, which is love, which is doing good to God, others and self):

a. At home to family and friends.
b. At work to co-workers.
c. At Church.
d. In the world, especially by leading others to God in Christ.

6.  Fellowship (renewing relationship) with Christian people.

7.  Stewardship of my resources:

a. Of my relationships.
b. Of my time and talent.
c. Of my money, giving to God and His work my tithe (as I calculate it).

The Lesson for Sunday, January 21st is titled "Lasting Results"

Key Verse:  John 6:35

Focus of the Lesson:  People constantly search for those experiences or possessions that can provide satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment. Can we discover someone or something that can provide spiritual satisfaction? John suggests that Jesus portrays himself as the life-giver in whom there is complete satisfaction.

The reading is John 6:34-40; 7:37-39 This text is from the New International Version^®.

Background Scripture:  John 6:25-59; 7:37-39

   ³⁴"Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread."

   ³⁵Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

John 7

   ³⁷On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." ³⁹By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

NIV®