The St. Martin's Prime Timers A.B.F. Welcomes you to our Web Page!

You are invited to join us in the Payne Education Center, rooms 207-209.  We meet each Sunday in between the 9am and 11am services from 10:10am to 10:50. Coffee and snacks await you! Our class is currently studying God's Living Covenant from the Old Testament.

Skip Allen, now a member of the Absolutely Fabulous ABF, made a return to the Prime Timers for today's lesson. His wife Shirley told us about the Rusk Elementary reading program.

Prime Timers Good News

A Prime Timer tradition, we devote time at the beginning of class to hear Good News from our members. Just one catch! We charge a dollar, but the lectern is yours. These dollars are periodically donated to a good cause of the class's choosing.

Shirley Allen, a member of the Rusk Elementary reading program, reports that there are now twenty-four "readers" in the group and that the program is a continuing success. Max Kech followed up giving thanks for her student, Jose.

Making Life's Choices

Skip Allen led class in a discussion of the twenty fourth chapter of the Book of Joshua. This is also referred to as The Gathering at Shechem. Joshua is unsure of the allegiance of his people to God and challenges them to serve the Lord.

Skip presented background referring to the four source theory of the first five books of the Bible, or Pentateuch, a Greek word derived from two words: penta meaning "five", and teukhos which means "implement" refering to the Hebrew Bible's books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The four source theory marked the birth of biblical scholarship and resulted from a critical examination of these books in the Bible, finding discrepancies and inconsistencies that led them to suggest that these books were the work of four authors.

The first, called the "J" document, for Judah (or Jehovah or Yahweh) is thought to be written around 959 BC. It originated as an oral tradition in Judah, the southern kingdom dealing primarily with the time of the Patriarchs, 1900-1650BC.

The second is the "E" document, for Ephraim or Elohim, dating from around 900-750BC and coming from an oral tradition in Israel, the northern kingdom.

Third, the "P" or Priestly source, dates from sometime after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple (c. 587-586 BC). This was the beginning of the Exile. The emphasis here is on ritual and legal cleanliness.

The forth, or "D" document, for Deuteronomic Source is from a later time, probably 700-650BC, supposedly discovered in the Temple in Jerusalem about 621BC.

Wow, that was quite a bit of background! The Book of Joshua, thought to be largely written by the Deuteronomist from the four sources above,  kind of completes the story of the first five books by describing the conquest of the Promised Land. It is called the Hexateuch when you combine these first six books!

The speech by Joshua is his farewell to the People, he is about to die, and in it he tries to get them to renew their Covenant with God. The Israelites go through many cycles of 1) Falling into Sin, 2) Repentance and 3) Restoration in the Deuteronomic tradition. Just before the reading for today is this passage from Joshua 24:12-13 "...You did not do it with your own sword and bow. ¹³So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant."

After all of this, does Joshua succeed in getting the People to fear and serve the Lord? Not really! And how different are we? Do we believe that if we forsake the Lord that he will turn on us and consume us? Fortunately we have the concept of forgiveness in our beliefs.

In the discussion following Skip Allen's talk, someone asked if you were tried in a court of Law for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you. A follow up was "by thy works will they know you."

Max Kech led our healing prayer, then Skip Allen read a benediction and dismissed the class.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leader

Today Max Kech is grateful for her student at Rusk.

The Rev. Massey Gentry is the Prime Timers mentor, and preached a wonderful sermon this morning!

Our reading comes from the section of the Book of Joshua generally referred to as The Gathering at Shechem.

This is about all that is left of the ancient city of Shechem, where the reading from the Book of Joshua took place.

Ben Welmaker is our teacher for October 1.

The Lesson for Sunday, October 1st is titled "Seeking Deliverance"

Key Verse:  Judges 2:16

Focus of the Lesson:  We all long to be delivered from desperate situations, even those of our own making. Where can we look for help? Whenever the Hebrew people cried to God, God raised someone (a judge) to save them.

The reading is Judges 2:16-23. This text is from the New International Version^®.

   ¹¹Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. ¹²They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger ¹³because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. ¹⁴In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. ¹⁵Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

   ¹⁶Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. ¹⁷Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD's commands. ¹⁸Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. ¹⁹But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

   ²⁰Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, "Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, ²¹I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. ²²I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did." ²³The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.

NIV®