The Lenten Season is beginning!

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. This year Easter falls about as early as it can, March 23. The last time Easter was this early was in 1913! St. Martin's is consolidating all the A.B.F.'s into one big class meeting in the Bagby Parish Hall during Lent, with members of the clergy conducting the classes. The next official meeting of Prime Timers will be March 30. In the meantime this page will update the readings for our class from the National Council of Churches.

Summoned to Labor!

Ben Welmaker began our lesson by reading the first eight verses of Psalm 78. This was a good way to open a discussion of the importance of spreading God's word. Next he had us read examples of people in the Bible who answered God's call by saying "Here I am." Among these were Abraham in Genesis 22: 1,11, Jacob in Genesis 31:11, Moses in Exodus 3:4, Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:5, 6 and 8, the Psalmist in Psalm 40:7, Mary in Luke 1:38 and finally Isaiah in Isaiah 6:8.

The main lesson was the story in Luke 10:1-20 where Jesus sends the seventy two out two-by-two to prepare the way for him, kind of like ancient advance men, and reminiscent of the Billy Graham crusade. Ben went through the reading showing how Jesus carefully prepared his new apostles to venture into the world, their great joy as they returned with stories of miracles and casting out demons, and Jesus cautioning them not to rejoice in spirits submitting to them but that the apostles names are written in heaven.

The Lesson for Sunday, February 17th is "Summoned to be Humble!"

Key Verse:  Luke 14:11

Focus of the Lesson: Our society values and rewards people who put themselves first. What is a better way to live? At a meal where people are clamoring for the best seats, Jesus tells a parable about humility.

The reading is Luke 14:1, 7-14. This text is from the New International Version. (NIV)

   ¹One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.

   ⁷When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. ¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

   ¹²Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

NIV