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May 13, 2007 "The Eternal Home" |
Welcome to the St. Martin's Prime Timers Adult Bible Fellowship!
You can find us in the Payne Education Center, rooms 207-209, Sunday from 10:10 to 10:50am. While Prime Timers is geared towards people aged fifty to sixty-four, we always welcome new members and whatever your age you are invited!
Ben Welmaker is our teacher during May. We are exploring the Book of Revelation.
Food for the Chicken
A Prime Timer tradition is setting aside time at the beginning of class to hear our members Good News. It only costs a dollar! Currently when the "nest" gets big enough we are donating money to the Amistad Mission in Bolivia. Today both Donna and Ben gave thanks for their seventh wedding anniversary! Midge announced that they have a new grandchild coming in October. And Lynn praised the St. Martin's Wednesday evening programs.
Finding Community
Its now Ben Welmaker's turn to guide us through the Book of Revelation. We began this journey in April with Pete Seale and Ben gets to wrap it up through May. We begin a new unit in June, titled "Life as God's People." Ben suggested that the best way to approach Revelation is to read it all in one sitting! This way you get an amazing story, complete with incredible symbolism, ending up with a very new day dawning. While our reading today is Chapter 19 Ben, provided some context with an interactive reading from chapters seventeen and eighteen.
Revelation 17:1-9: Then one of the seven
angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will
show you the judgment of the great whore who is seated on many
waters, 2with whom the kings of the
earth have committed fornication, and with the wine of whose
fornication the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.’
3So he carried me away in the spirit into a
wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was
full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.
4The woman was clothed in purple and
scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her
hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her
fornication; 5and on her forehead was
written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of whores and
of earth’s abominations.’ 6And I saw
that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood
of the witnesses to Jesus.
When I saw her, I was greatly amazed. 7But
the angel said to me, ‘Why are you so amazed? I will tell you the
mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten
horns that carries her. 8The beast that
you saw was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless
pit and go to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose
names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation
of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was
and is not and is to come.
9‘This calls for a mind that has
wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is
seated;
---
18The woman you saw is the great city that rules over
the kings of the earth.’
Revelation 18:1-24 1After
this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great
authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor.
2He called out with a mighty voice,
‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
It has become a dwelling-place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit,
a haunt of every foul bird,
a haunt of every foul and hateful beast.
3For all the nations have drunk
of the wine of the wrath of her fornication,
and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of
her luxury.’
4Then I heard another voice from
heaven saying,
‘Come out of her, my people,
so that you do not take part in her sins,
and so that you do not share in her plagues;
5for her sins are heaped
high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
6Render to her as she
herself has rendered,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed.
7As she glorified herself
and lived luxuriously,
so give her a like measure of torment and grief.
---
9And the kings of the earth, who
committed fornication and lived in luxury with her, will weep and
wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning;
---
11And the merchants of the
earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any
more,
---
20Rejoice over her, O
heaven, you saints and apostles and prophets! For God has given
judgment for you against her.
21Then a mighty angel took up a stone
like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,
‘With such violence Babylon the great city
will be thrown down,
and will be found no more;
---
24And in you was found the blood of
prophets and of saints,
and of all who have been slaughtered on earth.’
This is some pretty serious stuff, probably written by an early Christian who had seen the dark side of the Roman Empire. Babylon here is clearly the Roman Empire. The writer is giving hope to those being persecuted that there are better times ahead. The reading from chapter nineteen describes the time after the fall of Babylon/Rome.
Ben told us that one reason the Roman Empire grew so large and stayed so long was this simple fact: if you accepted the Emperor as your God and worshipped him, you were left alone! Christians, on the other hand, had a hard time indeed. In the discussion following today's talk, Ben wants to integrate the Seven Christian Habits that Rev. Larry Gipson so often refers to into our lesson. The very first habit is a personal, intimate relation with God through Jesus Christ. How do we achieve this?
Caroline answered that she does this by never stopping her
"conversation" with God. Another member suggested that prayer does
not have an end. If you embrace the idea that you have an eternal
soul you are much more likely to have a worldview that extends past
your own desires. Pride and love of self can become a sin when it is
perverted into hatred of your neighbor. Humility is on the other
side of this sin.
Prime Timers Contact names and numbers
Mentor
Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org
Leaders
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
atberry@proctor-law.com
Max Kech
713/802-0690 H
maxkech2003@yahoo.com
Marty Smith
713/464-6737 H
martys@houston.rr.com
Teachers
Richard Cruse
Chris Hershberger
Pete Seale
Ben Welmaker
bhwjr@flash.net
Outreach (inviting and welcoming new members)
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
atberry@proctor-law.com
Elizabeth Sleeper
jsleeperjr@houston.rr.com
Caring (prayers, follow-up w/class members who have been ill or have other needs)
Max Kech
713/802-0690 H
maxkech2003@yahoo.com
You can click on these photos for a better view. Use your browsers "back" button to return here.
Albrecht Dürer, The Revelation of St John: 14. The Whore of Babylon 1497-98
Woodcut, at the Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
Jan van Eyck, The Last Judgment, 1420-25
Oil on wood transferred to canvas, at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fra Angelico, The Last Judgment (detail), 1432-35, Tempera on wood, Museo di San Marco, Florence, Italy.
Hieronymus Bosch, Hell, Oil on panel, at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice
The Lesson for Sunday, May 13th is titled "The Eternal Home"
Key Verse: Revelation 21:3
Focus of the Lesson: Everyone wants a home in which he or she can be safe from hunger, thirst, and pain. Where does such a home exist? Revelation 21 says that the new heaven and new earth will be a home like this.
The reading is Revelation 21:1-8. This text is from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
4he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’
5And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ 6Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.’
NRSV
Pictures by Great Masters are courtesy of the Web Gallery of Art.
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