St. Martin's Adult Bible Fellowships welcome you.

Prime Timers is a St. Martin's Adult Bible Fellowship (A.B.F.) geared towards people in the Prime of Life, ages 50-64. We meet in the Payne Education Center in rooms 207-209 from 10:15am to 10:50. Whatever your age, you are invited to explore the Bible with us in a course authored by the United Council of Churches.

The Prime Timers are exploring the book of Daniel.

Our course material this month is from a new unit titled "The Covenant in Exile." Its a great time to join a St. Martin's ABF! In April our readings come from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, "...a man capable of receiving divine communication through the intermediation of angels regarding the future destiny of the world." (from the Harper Collins Bible Commentary, p 623.) If you can't wait, the reading for next week is at the bottom of this page!

Three Refuse to Break the Covenant 

Richard Cruse conducted class this week. We began by celebrating Lynn Swaffar's birthday Saturday. Many class members were there, and it was a very nice time indeed.

Richard began his lesson by reminding us of the time when the Book of Daniel was written. 175-143 bc. This was a very bad time for the Jews, as the successor's of Alexander the Great, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, were determined to wipe out the Jewish identity. They outlawed Jewish religious practices, plundered the Temple, and subjected the Jewish people to terrible tortures, as chronicled in the four Apocrypha books, 1-4 Maccabees.

Today's reading is the familiar story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refuse to worship Nebuchadnezzar's gold statue and are thrown into the furnace for their heresy. Richard told us that this is the basis for many martyrs' faith that what they do will not be in vain. In Roman times being a patriotic Roman generally consisted of making sacrifices for the Emperor. The Romans had many gods and must have thought "who are these people" of the Christians who were willing to die for only one God. The story from Daniel with the three men thrown into the furnace is very prominent in the drawings in the Catacomb's where Christians would hide from the Romans.

Richard then brought an insight from the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Lawrence Wright "The Looming Tower:  Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11." The Koran is very specific about suicide, its forbidden and you will go to hell being killed over and over by the instrument you used to kill yourself. So how are suicide bombers justified, or convinced to perform their terrible acts? Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two in Al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, used the examples of the Christian martyrs as justification for his suicide bombers! It is hard to find a more twisted reasoning.

Richard mentioned St. Steven, who could be described as the first martyr as he is stoned to death in Acts 7. Acts 7:60 "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." Clearly dying for your faith is a very complicated issue. Richard concluded class with a short prayer.

The Lesson for Sunday, April 20th is "Daniel's Life-and-Death Test"

Key Verse:  Daniel 6:10

Focus of the Lesson: People may be tempted to compromise their convictions in seemingly small ways. What does it matter if you compromise your convictions? When the order was made not to pray to anyone but the king for thirty days, Daniel refused to quit his three daily times of prayer to God or to hide his actions.

The reading is Daniel 6:4-7, 10, 16, 19, 21, 25-26. This text is from the New International Version. (NIV)

Background Scripture:  Daniel 6

   ⁴At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. ⁵Finally these men said, "We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God."

   ⁶So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: "O King Darius, live forever! ⁷The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions' den.

   ¹⁰Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

   ¹⁶So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions' den. The king said to Daniel, "May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!"

   ¹⁹At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions' den.

   ²¹Daniel answered, "O king, live forever!

   ²⁵Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land:
"May you prosper greatly!

   ²⁶"I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel.
"For he is the living God
and he endures forever;
his kingdom will not be destroyed,
his dominion will never end.

NIV