"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

Welcome to Prime Timers, a Christian Education Group at St. Martin's for Episcopalians aged fifty and above. We are following a course of study based on the Revised Common Lectionary. You are invited to join us in the Parlor near the church offices, Sunday after the 9:00am service, 10:15am to 11:00. A warm welcome is available to all.

The Great Commission, Matthew 28:16-20, one of St. Martin's stained glass windows.

The Prime Timers Monthly Dinner Get Together!

Each month we meet at an area restaurant for fellowship and good food. This month on Tuesday, May 25th, at our usual time, 6:30pm we are having dinner at Escalantes Fine Tex-Mex restaurant on 6582 Woodway. Please let Lynn Swaffar know if you are coming, she is at (281) 495-3832.

Prime Timers Good News!

Each week we hear our members good news, but it costs a dollar! We collect these dollars and currently we donate the money to the Amistad Mission in Bolivia. Lynn reports her daughter, currently on missionary work in Hungary, is returning home for the summer, after a trip to Transylvania. Watch out for guys named Vlad!!!

United by the Spirit

Carol Hartland led the Prime Timers on this Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church! This day brings us the famous "talking in tongues" from Acts 2, emphasizing the church bringing the Holy Spirit to everyone, not just an anointed few. Carol mentioned a DVD of the Acts of the Apostles that she highly recommends, since all the dialog comes directly from the Bible and not some writers interpretation.

Lynn asked an interesting question: how does Paul know so much? After all he never met Jesus, and until his conversion he actively persecuted Christians. And yet his writings define the structure of Christianity as a religion! Even a little research shows that this is a subject of much speculation. A book on this subject is The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by Hyam MacCoby.

Carol asked us for evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives today. Marty mentioned a story from the Houston Sunday Chronicle about a 12-year old, Logan Burnaman, who donated a bag full of coins to Mattress Mack after the Gallery Furniture warehouse fire last year. This kid restores your faith young people. Read the article by clicking the link above and I think you'll agree! Anne mentioned Houston philanthropist Dan Duncan, who passed away recently.

Dr. Albert C. Winn is Pastor Emeritus, North Decatur Presbyterian Church, Decatur, Georgia, and President Emeritus, Louisville Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. He writes in "The Acts of the Apostles":

"Now we can see how it could truly be said that before this 'the Spirit had not been given' (Jn. 7:39). ... Notice the repeated emphasis on the fact that the Spirit was given to the whole group. 'They were all together in one place'… 'it filled all the house' … 'resting on each one of them'… and 'they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.' There was no question here of a few first-class believers elevated above the mass of second-class believers by individual possession of the Spirit. The Spirit was poured out on the whole fellowship and thus distributed to the individuals who made up the fellowship.
"Never in the Old Testament was the Spirit poured out on all the people; only to the chosen leaders was the Spirit given. And the gift was temporary. When the immediate crisis passed, the Spirit departed.
"On the Day of Pentecost, the longing of the Old Testament was fulfilled. The Spirit came, not to some individuals in crisis, but to an assembled people. 'They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.' The Spirit came, not temporarily, but to dwell in their midst, to be the bond of their fellowship, the secret source of their common life, the power for their mission to the world, the witness to their preaching."

Carol concluded class with a short prayer.

The Readings for Sunday, May 30th are from Lectionary Year Three, Trinity Sunday-C, "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer"

The Readings for this week are Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5 and John 16:12-15. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

¹Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
²On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
³beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
⁴‘To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.

²²The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
²³Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
²⁴When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
²⁵Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth—
²⁶when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world’s first bits of soil.
²⁷When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
²⁸when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
²⁹when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
³⁰ then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
³¹rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Psalm 8

¹O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
² Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

⁵Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
⁷all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
⁸the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Romans 5:1-5

¹Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

John 16:12-15

¹² ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

NRSV