WEDNESDAY EVENING READINGS
APRIL 25, 2018
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THE BIBLE
and
SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES
By Mary Baker Eddy

PSALMS

25:1 Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
43:3 …send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles.
86:11 Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth:

DEUTERONOMY

32:1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
3 Because I will publish the name of the Lord:
4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

ISAIAH

9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

MATTHEW

16: 13 ¶ When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
16 … Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 … Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar–jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
18 … upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

SH 589:16
JESUS. The highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man’s immortality.

SH 583:10
CHRIST. The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error.

SH 473:4
Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes all power to God. Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing the sick and the sinning and destroying the power of death. Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ.

SH 332:9 Christ
Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual,–yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death.

SH 333:9 Christ
Christ is not a name so much as the divine title of Jesus. Christ expresses God’s spiritual, eternal nature. The name is synonymous with Messiah, and alludes to the spirituality which is taught, illustrated, and demonstrated in the life of which Christ Jesus was the embodiment.

From JOHN in the New Living Translation

8:12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
4:7 …a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.”
9 She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
11 “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water?
13 Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.
14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.
23 “…the time is coming—indeed it is here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus told her, “I Am the Messiah!”

ROMANS

1:16 I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes…
19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them.
20 For, ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

SH 316:7
Christ, Truth, was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of Spirit over the flesh, — to show that Truth is made manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body, healing sickness and destroying sin.

SH 315:29
Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed to mortal view), being conceived by a human mother, Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh, between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrating the way of divine Science, he became the way of salvation to all who accepted his word.

FROM JOHN IN THE KING JAMES VERSION

14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
6 …I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
26 … the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

MARK

16:17 … these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

SH 332:19
Jesus demonstrated Christ; he proved that Christ is the divine idea of God–the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, revealing the divine Principle, Love, and leading into all truth.

SH 38:10-14
Jesus said: “These signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Who believes him? He was addressing his disciples, yet he did not say, “These signs shall follow you,” but them — “them that believe” in all time to come.

SH 328:28 (only), 30
Jesus’ promise is perpetual.
The purpose of his great life-work extends through time and includes universal humanity. Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a single period or of a limited following. As time moves on, the healing elements of pure Christianity will be fairly dealt with; they will be sought and taught, and will glow in all the grandeur of universal goodness.

CONTINUING WITH JOHN IN THE NEW LIVING TRANSLATION

18:28 Jesus’ trial before Caiaphas ended in the early hours of the morning. Then he was taken to the headquarters of the Roman governor. His accusers didn’t go inside because it would defile them, and they wouldn’t be allowed to celebrate the Passover.
29 So Pilate, the governor, went out to them and asked, “What is your charge against this man?”
30 “We wouldn’t have handed him over to you if he weren’t a criminal!” they retorted.
33 Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him.
“Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him.
Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”
38 “What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.”

SH 316:12
Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of God. Hence the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory religion, between spiritual clear-sightedness and the blindness of popular belief, which led to the conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed by crucifying the flesh. The Christ-idea, or the Christ-man, rose higher to human view because of the crucifixion, and thus proved that Truth was the master of death. Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs. Christ illustrates that blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man dominion over all the earth.

SH 43:17
The final demonstration of the truth which Jesus taught, and for which he was crucified, opened a new era for the world. Those who slew him to stay his influence perpetuated and extended it.

PROVERBS

3:1 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments;
2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
5 ¶ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

I CORINTHIANS in the New Living Translation

1:24 Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

SH xi:9
The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or “God with us,”–a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,
To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense], And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised.

SH 180:25
When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible. The only way to this living Truth, which heals the sick, is found in the Science of divine Mind as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus.

Periodicals Quotation:

“Christ Jesus, The Way-Shower”
By Ella W. Hoag
Christian Science Journal
September 1922

Mary Baker Eddy … says … in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 26), “While we adore Jesus, and the heart overflows with gratitude for what he did for mortals,—treading alone his loving pathway up to the throne of glory, in speechless agony exploring the way for us,—yet Jesus spares us not one individual experience, if we follow his commands faithfully.”

Yes,—Christian Scientists are quite sure of the grandeur of Jesus’ demonstration; but what of following his commands? How many really study his life and works with the intent of discovering what the necessary steps are, and how to take them if one is to walk in his pathway?

The Christian Scientist who has even a little understanding of the letter of Christian Science is quite aware that the way Jesus walked was the way from sense to Soul. It was the way out of the beliefs of a supposed existence in matter—separated from God—into the proof that man is always and forever the son of God, the image and likeness of infinite Spirit,—Life, Truth, Love,—always and forever at one with the Father.

This every Christian Scientist accepts without questioning. But are we all awake to the necessity of carefully and earnestly studying our Master’s life in order that we may win thereby the illumination needed on our own pathway? How often, instead, do we stumble blindly along without even endeavoring to find out what Jesus did under circumstances similar to those we are encountering?

One reason for this is that false theology has set up many a barrier against such study. In the interpretation which scholasticism has given of the earthly experiences of Jesus as being so far removed from ours, it almost closed the door on our discovering in him the blessed Way-shower. Christian Science has, however, opened it wide, that we may find what mines of wealth are there for us, through studying his character from the standpoint of its revelations.

It shows us that he walked so close to God that he was ever ready to prove the presence of good, and its power to vanquish evil. He demonstrated that the Christ is always present to replace human belief with the truth of being. This understanding of the Christ—the real selfhood or spiritual man—Jesus always used by replacing the human with the divine. This gave him the humility which always knew the might of acknowledging no Mind but the divine.

It gave him tenderness, compassion, love. It inspired him with strength and the moral courage which were always ready to uncover, rebuke, and destroy every claim of error. It kept him in an unfaltering adherence to divine Principle!

Let us remember that every divine quality he expressed, every recourse he had to the Christ, is as possible to us as to him, —if we will walk in the same absolute obedience to God. It is not only the right but finally the necessity of every individual to follow him in his demonstration of complete spirituality.