You are invited to join us on a spiritual adventure!

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. Our course this year is authored by the United Council of Churches, our current quarter is a unit titled Images of Christ.

St. Martin's Adult Bible Fellowships are open all summer!

August concludes our Fourth Quarter, a series of readings entitled Images of Christ. Our readings this month are from the Book of James. You can get a head start, next weeks reading is at the bottom of this page!

Every week Prime Timers begins by hearing from our members. Sandy told us about her grandchildren, Jack (4) and Josh (6), celebrating their birthdays. Lynne gave thanks for her friend Sally, who lost her foot in a car accident, taking a friend, a double-amputee, to New York, where he will appear on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."  Donn brought the good news that his daughter-in-law, who was diagnosed with melanoma, successfully underwent surgery. And George reported going to a sendoff, at five in the morning, of his grandchildren to Camp Ozark, and finding he was not alone. There were hundreds of kids, complete with steamer trunks, being packed onto nine buses with fifty kids each!

Christ as Messiah

Donn Fullenweider led us through our reading from the book of James. This is where Jesus changes Simon to Peter, "the rock" upon which Jesus church will be built, and where Jesus tells Peter to (Matthew 16:23) "...Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

The reading begins with Jesus coming to the region of Caesarea Philippi, twenty or so miles north of the Sea of Galilee. There is a spring in there, one of the sources of the Jordan River. It was a popular site for earlier religions, first of  Baal and then of Pan. Its location was also strategic, and for this region the son of Herod the Great, Philip, rebuilt it as his capital to honor the emperor "Caesarea" and himself "Philippi."

This event is a turning point in Jesus life. Before this he spoke to crowds of people, now he would be talking to his disciples and instead of a conquering hero in the mold of David, Jesus described suffering to come, his death and resurrection.

In line with the question of identity Jesus presents to his disciples, Donn asked us to recall some event in our past that we were proud of but our classmates are probably not aware of. This brought quite a response from the class. Anne made her piano television debut at age twelve. Lynda was first in her class at college! Martin covered the 1964 election campaign in New Jersey when he was in High School, the Goldwater campaign never paid the $160 for their full page ad! Elizabeth described a transforming experience on a trip to Chatham Hall in Virginia when a hurricane hit! She arrived to find all the lights out, spent the night with strangers for the first time, and found she was having the time of her life! It gave her confidence that persists today! George found his calling as an engineer when he built a concrete bridge all by himself at the entrance to his father's farm! The bridge lasted until just recently. Lynn described dealing with attention deficit disorder, (ADD) before the condition was generally acknowledged. And Donn described living in Chicago when his father lost his job, finally moving to Houston. Donn figured he needed an education fast and graduated from both undergraduate and law school in 5 years!

Donn concluded class with a group reading of the following prayer:

I believe in the Word, who from the beginning was with God and was God.
I believe that all things came into being through the Word.

I believe this Word, who I know as Jesus the Messiah, became flesh and dwelled among us. Through him, I see the grace and truth of God the Father, for in Jesus, God is made known.
   I believe that the Father, who disclosed to Moses the divine name "I AM," is revealed through Jesus, who said to his followers:
   I AM the Bread of Life;
   I AM the Light of the World;
   I AM the Door of the Sheepfold;
   I AM the Good Shepherd;
   I AM the Resurrection and the Life;
   I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life;
   I AM the True Vine.
   I believe Jesus fulfilled his promise to send an Advocate, divinity who dwells in me as the Holy Spirit.
   I believe Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected from the dead and reigns with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forevermore.

The Lesson for Sunday, August 3rd is "Doers of the Word"

Key Verse:  James 1:22

Focus of the Lesson: Some people have abundant knowledge, but it does not necessarily motivate their behavior. What is the appropriate relationship between knowing what to do and acting on that knowledge? James tells us that as God's people we must not only hear the word of God bus also respond to it with transforming action.

The reading is James 1:17-27. This text is from the New International Version. (NIV)

Background Scripture:  James 1

   ¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

   ¹⁹My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. ²¹Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

   ²²Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

   ²⁶If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

NIV