Christ by El Greco, 1606, Oil on Canvas at the Cathedral in Toledo Spain

Prime Timers

The Prime Timers were a Bible study group at St. Martin's for eight years. One of the goals of our founder Jackie Rose was to have a weekly web page for the group and all the pages are still online here. The group disbanded but the readings below are being kept up to date.

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, May 17 are from the Lectionary Year A Sixth Sunday of Easter: Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:7-18; 1 Peter 3:13-22 and John 14:15-21. The text is from the Bible Study Tools - New International Version.

Acts 17:22-31

²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. ²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸ ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said,

    ‘We are his offspring.’

²⁹ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. ³⁰ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Psalm 66:7-18

⁸ Praise our God, all peoples,
     let the sound of his praise be heard;

⁹ he has preserved our lives
     and kept our feet from slipping.

¹⁰ For you, God, tested us;
     you refined us like silver.

¹¹ You brought us into prison
     and laid burdens on our backs.

¹² You let people ride over our heads;
     we went through fire and water,
     but you brought us to a place of abundance.

¹³ I will come to your temple with burnt offerings
     and fulfill my vows to you—
  ¹⁴ vows my lips promised and my mouth
     spoke when I was in trouble.

¹⁵ I will sacrifice fat animals to you
     and an offering of rams;
     I will offer bulls and goats.

¹⁶ Come and hear, all you who fear God;
     let me tell you what he has done for me.

¹⁷ I cried out to him with my mouth;
     his praise was on my tongue.

¹⁸ If I had cherished sin in my heart,
     the Lord would not have listened;

¹⁹ but God has surely listened
      and has heard my prayer.

²⁰ Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer
     or withheld his love from me!

1 Peter 3:13-22

¹³ Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? ¹⁴ But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats ; do not be frightened.” ¹⁵ But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, ¹⁶ keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. ¹⁷ For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. ¹⁹ After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— ²⁰ to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, ²¹ and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²² who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

John 14:15-21

¹⁵ “If you love me, keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Thanks to Bible Study Tools for today's text.