Its the Memorial Day edition of the Prime Timers Web Page!

Every Sunday the Payne Education Center hosts the Prime Timers Adult Bible Fellowship from 10:10am to 10:50 in rooms 207-209.  You are invited to join us for coffee, breakfast snacks and currently Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

Prime Timers Need Snacks!

For the last year or so Elizabeth Sleeper recruited Prime Timers to bring in the snacks we enjoy at the beginning of our class. Elizabeth would like another Prime Timer to take over for her at the end of May. The job consists of circulating the calendar to sign people up for "snack duty." Then you follow up to make sure the snacks actually show up on the appointed week! You can contact Elizabeth at her email, listed below in our roster, or you can call Max Kech or Caroline Maryan, (her phone is the same as Skip's.)

The Excellent Wife

Class was led today by the wife of our leader Skip Maryan. Caroline Maryan's topic from Proverbs is the story of the Excellent Wife. As with many Bible passages, this one is an acrostic, a passage where the first letter of each line begins with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Because Hebrew text reads right to left and the language does not exactly match English, click here to see today's reading along with the Hebrew text and the English word corresponding to the Hebrew letters highlighted.

As Caroline points out, this is not done to hide anything, its a technique to facilitate memorizing a text.

Our reading is Proverbs 31, and women take over the instruction! The first part is the mother of King Lemuel instructing her son in the ways of statecraft. She tells him, among other things, not to exhaust himself in the harem, or with wine or beer; to speak up for those who can't do so themselves and to rule wisely. Then she begins our reading for today about the Excellent Wife. 

While the wife described in today's reading prompted George Laigle to wonder if there was ever a wife as perfect as the one described in the text, Caroline reminisced about frontier homesteading families, including her own, where a husband and wife pair were needed if the venture was to survive.

Then she described Skip and her experience in Indonesia, where they became responsible for the well being of their servants. As she described it, they were put there and were expected to find the proper number of servants for their situation. They were expected to maintain order and comity in this new expanded family, to take responsibility for their health care, to teach them English, etc. Indonesia is a Moslem country and after the month of Ramadan it is traditional to give each of your employees a month's wages, so they can buy new clothes. While this situation was taken for granted over there, it was quite a change of pace for an American family.

In order to balance the "Excellent Wife", Caroline offered Psalm 112 a story of a righteous man.

The discussion afterward brought out concerns about how today you have to "compete" with popular culture when you raise a family. A two income family may be necessary today but it puts strains on family life.

Caroline Maryan then read the benediction to end the session.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leader

Today's lesson from Proverbs on the Excellent Wife was led by Caroline Maryan.

This is St. Paul by the artist El Greco. Paul's letters to the Corinthians figure in the readings for the next couple weeks.

The beautiful St. Martin's Episcopal Church is open for tours 12:30pm every Sunday, and Wednesdays and Fridays, 10:45 AM-12:30 PM; formal tour from 11:00 AM-12:00 PM.

The Lesson for Sunday, June 4th is titled "Living in Unity"

Key Verse:  1 Corinthians 1:10

Focus of the Lesson:  Many people have experienced the divisiveness of misguided loyalties. What demands our loyalty to the point that we are united rather than divided? Paul says that the Christian community finds its unity in Jesus Christ, to whom we owe complete loyalty.

The reading is 1 Corinthians 1:10-17. This text is from the New International Version^®.

   10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11 My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."

   13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? 14 I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. 16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

NIV®