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 9 and 11am services from 10:10 to 10:50.  Our class is currently studying God's Living Covenant from the Old Testament. Hope to see you there!

Ben Welmaker is this Sunday's teacher!

Seeking Deliverance

Ben Welmaker conducted class this week, working through the theme in Judges 2, "Where Have I Failed You." The "I" here is not God but us. The passage from Judges describes how the people would follow someone, then when that person died the people would return to their old ways, sometimes worse than before.

Ben used this to identify our failure to God as:

• Individuals
• The Church
• The Nation

Our reading refers to the covenant with God described in Deuteronomy 8:1 "Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers." God gives us so much, and then we fail Him.

Our failing God as individuals prompted Ben to recall the Seven Deadly Sins, along with the opposite of each:

Add in False Gods, No Spiritual Growth and Failure to Spread the Good News and we are lucky to have a God who loves us.

As a church, failures include:

• Pursuing wealth through real estate
• Acquiring power through secular politics
• Superficial worship -- showbiz religion
• Capitalistic values (!?!)

Ben was somewhat incredulous over the last one, after all capitalism is about freedom of choices, and the capitalistic societies do have the material resources to make pursuing higher goals possible. He agreed that churches that try to link spiritual truth with a certain candidate is risky business.

Finally as a nation, we can:

• Succumb to the lure of global domination
• Have disproportionate wealth
• Pervasive violence

These themes come out of the study guide we use for the class and serve as talking points or discussion generators. Ben did not agree with the characterization of capitalism as a failure of God's covenant with us.

Class discussion brought out the point of how our free press can often make things worse by "stirring the pot" on controversial issues in order to generate emotional responses.

Ben then led our healing prayer and dismissed the class.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leader

The Rev. Massey Gentry is the Prime Timers mentor.

Small figurine of the god Baal, 14-12th centuries, found in Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Astarte, or Ashtoret in Hebrew, the Phoenician god of fertility, sexuality and war. Currently at the Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid.

The Lesson for Sunday, October 8th is titled "Leadership Counts!"

Key Verses:  Judges 4:8-9
Background Scripture:  Judges 4

Focus of the Lesson:  Strong leaders may get results when no one else can. What characterizes a strong leader? Deborah modeled strong leadership by obeying God and supporting Barak with her presence.

The reading is Judges 4:4-10, 12-16. This text is from the New International Version^®.

   ⁴Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. ⁵She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided. ⁶She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you: 'Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor. ⁷I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.' "

   ⁸Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me, I won't go."

   ⁹"Very well," Deborah said, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman." So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh, ¹⁰where he summoned Zebulun and Naphtali. Ten thousand men followed him, and Deborah also went with him.

Judges 4:12-16

   ¹²When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, ¹³Sisera gathered together his nine hundred iron chariots and all the men with him, from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River.

   ¹⁴Then Deborah said to Barak, "Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the LORD gone ahead of you?" So Barak went down Mount Tabor, followed by ten thousand men. ¹⁵At Barak's advance, the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot. ¹⁶But Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim. All the troops of Sisera fell by the sword; not a man was left.

NIV®