The St. Martins Prime Timers Adult Bible Fellowship welcomes you our our web page!

We meet each Sunday in the Payne Education Center from 10:10am to 10:50 in rooms 207-207. Come join us for fellowship, coffee, donuts, and this week the story of Aquila and Priscilla from the Book of Acts.

Prime Timer Teacher Skip Maryan and fellow Prime Timers Linda Thompson, Rick and Maud Ella Hartley and Outreacher Anne Berry.

The Prime Timers Halloween Party!

Prime Timer teacher Skip Maryan and his wife Caroline hosted this years Halloween Party on Saturday, October 29. The unusual costumes in some of this weeks photos are from that party. Generally this is not what our members wear to church.

Announcements

Set aside Saturday, December 17th. Rick and Maud Ella Hartley are hosting the Prime Timers Christmas Party! More information will follow in the weeks ahead.

Outreach information

Several weeks ago Jackie asked the class to fill out a form about how we would like to proceed with an outreach project as part of our service to God.

This week we heard from Nancy Chickering suggesting we serve at Rusk Elementary, home to 340 disadvantaged, mostly Hispanic children. The children love to be read to, and we could also collect or buy books for them. Shirley Allen gave us a way to stretch our contribution with an inexpensive plastic covering for paperback books that would allow them to last five times as long.

Good News!

Donate a dollar to our chicken Henny Penny and bring us your Good News!

Barbara McMahon brought us the wonderful news that a test on one of her grandchildren with hearing problems indicated an 80% chance of her hearing being restored.

Bobbie Griffith Winner just opened a new antiques shop and is happy with how events in her life are lining up.

Caroline Maryan reports that her 19 year old son is joining the Navy.

And our mentor, Vice-Rector Rusty Goldsmith, told us about his trip to Marfa, Texas and the art colony he found there.

Offering of Oneself

Skip Maryan began class this morning with a review of where we have been, and a hint at where we are going. We are studying the Book of Acts and will be for the next two weeks.

The Book of Acts is divided into six sections:

1) The Birth of the Church, or Pentecost.

2) The Persecution of the Christians.

3) The Gentiles are brought into the story.

4) Antioch, or the Church

5) The Aegean Sea, the story expands to the east.

6) Paul's last journey to Rome, and his martyrdom.

Our current reading is from the section of the Aegean Sea, the story expanding to the east into what is now Turkey and Greece. The journey continues through several regions and cities. In the middle of the reading the voice changes from the third person, "they", to first person plural, "we". There is no completely convincing reason for this, although it is one of 97 times in Acts that this occurs.

Twice Paul and his companions are restrained from doing something, first when they tried to preach in the province of Asia, and second when they try to enter Bithynia. The Spirit of Jesus is actively directing their path.

They travel to the Roman city of Philippi, where by Roman decree there can be no other religion taught except Roman beliefs. They go outside the city to find a place of prayer and meet Lydia, who is converted and offers them her home and hospitality. Lydia is the first woman convert in the Bible.

During this period we sometimes consider the groups at play to be either Romans, Jews or Christians, when there was really a spectrum of people with Pagans on one end, strict Jews on the other, and many variations in-between. Most of Paul's converts came from what you might see as the middle ground.

Jackie Rose then led a healing prayer for the class and Skip Maryan concluded with the benediction.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

The Rev. Maurice L. "Rusty" Goldsmith. D.D.
713/985-3831
rgoldsmith@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leader

Our class mentor, Vice-Rector Rusty Goldsmith, introduces our lesson for the week.

Hands up! Bill and Nancy Akers get into the spirit of the Prime Timers Halloween Party.

Lee Ohrt as a very colorful octopus!

Hostess Caroline Maryan with the Mad Hatter himself, Dr. Bill Moore, and Anne Berry

Halloween hat trick by Skip Maryan, with Richard W. Junker as the potential "soak-ee". Just in case anyone is confused, this is not the Houston Symphony clarinetist.

 The Lesson for Sunday, November 20th is titled "Working Together in Ministry"

Key Verse:  Acts 18:3

Focus of the Lesson:  People need to work together to do God's work. What models of team ministry do we have? Acts describes how Aquila and Priscilla, mentored by Paul, learned to minister to others as a team.

The reading is Acts 18:1-4, 18-21, 24-28. This text is from the New International Version^®.

   1 After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. 4 Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

   18 Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cenchrea because of a vow he had taken. 19 They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. 20 When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. 21 But as he left, he promised, "I will come back if it is God's will." Then he set sail from Ephesus.

   24 Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. 25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.

   27 When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. 28 For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

NIV®