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|
July 29, 2007 "Getting Through
the Pain" |
The St. Martin's Prime Timers Adult Bible Fellowship Welcomes You.
We meet in the Payne Education Center, rooms 207-209, Sunday from 10:10 to 10:50am. The class is geared towards people aged fifty to sixty-four, but the message of the Bible we explore is universal. You are invited to join us, and you can bring a friend!
This summer the Prime Timers are studying the Prophets: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Lamentations (traditionally ascribed to Jeremiah), Ezekiel, Zechariah and Malachi. These prophets proclaimed God's word over several hundred years, but their message was consistent: A faithful relationship with God entails specific requirements, one of which is to do right. This week and next our prophet is Jeremiah.
Ben Welmaker is teaching the Prime Timers in July.
Prime Timers Good News
Lynn reported some very good news indeed about her mother, Dorothy, who recently underwent successful cancer surgery. Her mother is a volunteer, for forty years(!!!) at M.D. Anderson, visiting people with cancer in the head and neck, people who can have severe disfigurements due to their cancers. You have to thank the Lord for not only the successful surgery, but also for people like Dorothy!
Your Actions, Your Consequences
Today's lesson from the Prophet Jeremiah is called the Temple Sermon. The reading from our lesson plan comes in at the end of the sermon, but our teacher Ben Welmaker felt we really needed the context of the whole sermon. If you would like to read it yourself, click here. Once again we have worshippers falling off the wagon. Jeremiah 7:4 "Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’" Just repeating the words will not be enough. People, even today, can experience an "edifice complex" where they concentrate on the institution rather than their relationship with God.
Take a look in the next column with the Seven Christian Habits and
check out number two, daily personal prayer. Then read Jeremiah
7:9-10 "Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely,
make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not
known, 10and then come and stand before me in this house,
which is called by my name, and say,
‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?"
This sermon was delivered around 609 BC, a time of political upheaval in Judah and in the region. King Josiah had been killed in battle by the Egyptians. They deposed his son Jehoahaz after only three months reign and replaced him with Jehoiakim, who they thought to be more trustworthy. A struggle between Egypt and Babylon for the control of Palestine was under way, and questions of security and prosperity were at the top of everyone's list. Jeremiah's sermon's predicting God's wrath on the temple attracted attention, in fact a group of priests started legal proceedings against him and tried to have him executed! The problem Jeremiah identifies, of people using the temple to hide behind a false veil of piety, parallels problems that Jesus would have.
Jeremiah refers to Shiloh as an example of what can happen to people who fall into "wickedness." Shiloh was a center of Jewish worship in what became the Northern Kingdom. The Ark of the Covenant was kept here until it was taken to Jerusalem. Shiloh was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Jeremiah is saying that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
This led Ben to mention a speech by Winston Churchill on February 7, 1934 where he calls for Britain to create an air force as great as Germany's. Churchill said "Not one of the lessons of the past has been learned, not one of them has been applied, and the situation is incomparably more dangerous." Britain had lost an entire generation of young men in World War I, but the last thing they wanted to deal with was preparing for another war, so they ignored Churchill's prophetic words, and suffered the consequences with Hitler's air raids over London during World War II.
One definition of Hell is to be outside the presence of God. As good Christians we need to be aware that God is watching us, always, and not just when we pray. Our discussion centered around this. Do you just turn to God in specific instances, or when you need Him? Do we become sloppy or slothful in our quest for a personal, enduring relationship with God. A parallel from the Old Testament are the people who sacrifice lame or diseased animals to God. If they were to ask themselves, would I do this if it were for the Governor, the answer would be "get the best calf." But isn't God actually watching us closer?
What would you do? Are the Seven Christian Habits in the next column a part of your life? Or are you waiting for a crisis to ask God for help?
Prime Timers Contact names and numbers
Mentor
Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org
Leaders
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
atberry@proctor-law.com
Max Kech
713/802-0690 H
maxkech2003@yahoo.com
Marty Smith
713/464-6737 H
martys@houston.rr.com
Teachers
Richard Cruse
Chris Hershberger
Pete Seale
Ben Welmaker
bhwjr@flash.net
Outreach (inviting and welcoming new members)
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
atberry@proctor-law.com
Elizabeth Sleeper
jsleeperjr@houston.rr.com
Caring (prayers, follow-up w/class members who have been ill or have other needs)
Max Kech
713/802-0690 H
maxkech2003@yahoo.com
Click here for a print friendly version of this page!
Thanks to the Web Gallery of Art for photos of the works of the Great Masters in today's web page.
The Ark of the Covenant! We don't really know what the actual ark looks like, this is an imagining from the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
Small pieces from other churches, recently installed near the cornerstone of our new church (click on the photo for a better view). Recently Lee Hunnell took a memento from our church to give to our sister church, St. Elisabeth's in Marburg, Germany.
Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Rembrandt, 1630, Oil on panel, at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
A view from the newly dedicated St. Martin's Columbarium.
Seven Christian Habits:
2. Daily personal prayer and weekly worship of God in His Church by which I receive the renewal of my emotional-spiritual energy which I need to live my life.
3. Regular study of the Bible to understand how God has related to His people and what His will has been.
4. Adjusting my will to the will of God for me as revealed in Scripture, prayer, worship and my relationship with Him.
5. Service (which is ministry, which is love, which is doing good to God, others and self):
a. At home to family and friends.
b. At work to co-workers.
c. At Church.
d. In the world, especially by leading others to God in Christ.
6. Fellowship (renewing relationship) with Christian people.
7. Stewardship of my resources:
a. Of my relationships.
b. Of my time and talent.
c. Of my money, giving to God and His work my tithe (as I
calculate it).
The Lesson for Sunday, July 29th is titled "Getting Through the Pain"
Key Verse: Jeremiah 29:11
Focus of the Lesson: In the midst of loss and pain, people will sometimes willingly believe something untrue because it makes them feel better. How can we guard against such a mistake? Jeremiah urges us to hold to our trust in God and to wait patiently for Go's healing, which will come in God's own time.
The reading is Jeremiah 29:1-14. This text is from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
1These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. 3The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said: 4Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.
10For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
NRSV
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