Welcome to the Prime Timers A.B.F!

The Prime Timers Adult Bible Fellowship is intended for St. Martin's members in the 50-65 year range. The class is held each Sunday from 10:10 am until 10:50 am in the Payne Education Center, second floor, rooms 210-212. We have coffee, donuts and a warm welcome for everyone and you are invited!

Happy New Year!

We hope you had a good Holiday Season and a Happy New Year. Our prayers go out to the victims of the Christmas Day tsunami, a reminder of the awesome power of nature. The Episcopal Church already has a relief operation in South Asia, and it is being expanded in response to this disaster. You can learn more by clicking here:  Episcopal Relief and Development

Responding to the Call

Today Skip Maryan began his session informing us he just got a new hearing aid. Fill in your own joke here.

The reading was about Jesus sitting down with the tax collectors and "sinners". For context, remember that the tax collection was for the Romans, and that they "contracted" with local citizens to collect a certain amount of tax in return for a salary. Some of these people were unscrupulous and lined their pockets at the expense of their fellow citizens. For this reason all tax collectors were not thought of in a  favorable light.

The "sinners" referred to people who didn't meet the standards set down by the Pharisees, the  upholders of the Jewish Law in Jesus time. Skip characterized these sinners more like hillbillies than criminals, while making the point that to Jesus all men, and women, are sinners, including the self-righteous Pharisees.

The point of the reading, of course, is that Christians are inclusive. Jesus said “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” This leads to a dilemma:  how do you maintain standards and at the same time include all people? Skip once again referred to the passage about love from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, so I will leave it reprinted to the right. When a bum comes up to your window at the traffic light asking for a handout, your first reaction might be that this person should get a job. We have to realize that this person is also one of God's children.

Finding The Call, Responding to the Call, and following in Christ's footsteps is not easy. How do you know you are doing what God would like? How do you know what to do next? Skip concluded suggesting prayer and thought should be included in your answer.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Co-Leaders

The Lessons Continue

Jackie Rose returns as our speaker next week. She is here with our Mentor, the Rev. Richard Elwood.

Skip Maryan heads off to parts unknown after leading class for the last month.

This weeks Web extra is the passage from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, about Love.

From the New International Version, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not selfseeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The Lesson for Sunday, January 16 is titled "Preparing for the Job"

Key Verse:  Mark 3:14

Focus of the Lesson:  People need to be equipped to deal with the tasks to which they are called. How can Christians be adequately equipped for their tasks, especially proclaiming the good news? As with the Twelve, Jesus calls us to a relationship with God that prepares us for ministry in many forms.

The reading is Mark 6:6b-13; 3:13-19. This text is from the New Revised Standard Version.

6b Then he went about among the villages teaching. 7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10 He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ 12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

13 He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, 15 and to have authority to cast out demons. 16 So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.