April 24, 2019
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Readings from the Bible and Science & Health With Key to the Scriptures
By Mary Baker Eddy
GENESIS
5:23 . . . all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:
24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
FROM HEBREWS IN THE NEW ENGLISH BIBLE
11:5 By faith Enoch was carried away to another life without passing through death; he was not to be found, because God had taken him. For it is the testimony of Scripture that before he was taken he had pleased God,
1 . . .Faith gives assurance to our hopes, and makes us certain of realities we do not see.
6 . . . and without faith it is impossible to please him; for anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who search for him.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SH 214:5
If Enoch’s perception had been confined to the evidence before his material senses, he could never have “walked with God,” nor been guided into the demonstration of life eternal.
FROM GENESIS IN THE KING JAMES VERSION
28:10 And Jacob went out from Beer–sheba, and went toward Haran.
11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
13 And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac:
15 . . . I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
16 ¶ And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
17 And he was afraid, and said, . . . this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
DEUTERONOMY
1:1 These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, . . .
4:5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
7 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, . . . ?
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SH 213:30-3
Before human knowledge dipped to its depths into a false sense of things, — into belief in material origins, which discard the one Mind and true source of being, — it is possible that the impressions from Truth were as distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the primitive prophets.
SH 84:3
The ancient prophets gained their foresight from a spiritual, incorporeal standpoint, not by foreshadowing evil and mistaking fact for fiction, — predicting the future from a groundwork of corporeality and human belief. When sufficiently advanced in Science to be in harmony with the truth of being, men become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not by demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit. It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought which is in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future.
SH 73:26-39, 30
It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part of the reality of intelligent existence, or that Spirit and matter, intelligence and non-intelligence, can commune together.
The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual, nor can the finite become the channel of the infinite. There is no communication between so-called material existence and spiritual life which is not subject to death.
MARK
9:2 ¶ . . . Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.
4 And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus.
7 And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.
9 And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SH 72:23-28
In Science, individual good derived from God, the infinite All-in-all, may flow from the departed to mortals; but evil is neither communicable nor scientific. A sinning, earthly mortal is not the reality of Life nor the medium through which truth passes to earth.
SH 82:9-13, 18-27
If spiritual life has been won by the departed, they cannot return to material existence, because different states of consciousness are involved, and one person cannot exist in two different states of consciousness at the same time.
In like manner it would follow, even if our departed friends were near us and were in as conscious a state of existence as before the change we call death, that their state of consciousness must be different from ours. We are not in their state, nor are they in the mental realm in which we dwell. Communion between them and ourselves would be prevented by this difference. The mental states are so unlike, that intercommunion is as impossible as it would be between a mole and a human being.
SH 72:30-32
Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the communicator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and humanity.
I JOHN
4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.
12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SH 74:29, 13
In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, never a return to positions outgrown. The so-called dead and living cannot commune together, for they are in separate states of existence, or consciousness.
No correspondence nor communion can exist between persons in such opposite dreams as the belief of having died and left a material body and the belief of still living in an organic, material body.
75:25-1
There is one possible moment, when those living on the earth and those called dead, can commune together, and that is the moment previous to the transition, — the moment when the link between their opposite beliefs is being sundered. In the vestibule through which we pass from one dream to another dream, or when we awake from earth’s sleep to the grand verities of Life, the departing may hear the glad welcome of those who have gone before.
SH 76:12
When advanced to spiritual being and the understanding of God, man can no longer commune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will man seem to be corporeal, but he will be an individual consciousness, characterized by the divine Spirit as idea, not matter.
LUKE
24:1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.
9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.
10 It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SH 44:28-31, 5-10
His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while he was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas he was alive, demonstrating within the narrow tomb the power of Spirit to overrule mortal, material sense.
The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from his foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being. His three days’ work in the sepulchre set the seal of eternity on time. He proved Life to be deathless and Love to be the master of hate.
LUKE
24:13 ¶ And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.
32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SH 46:5
In the walk to Emmaus, Jesus was known to his friends by the words, which made their hearts burn within them, and by the breaking of bread. The divine Spirit, which identified Jesus thus centuries ago, has spoken through the inspired Word and will speak through it in every age and clime. It is revealed to the receptive heart, and is again seen casting out evil and healing the sick.
I KINGS
19:1 … Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.
3 And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, …
9 ¶ And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
10 And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
PROVERBS
2:1 My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
2 So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;
3 Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
The effects of Christian Science are not so much seen as felt. It is the “still, small voice” of Truth uttering itself. We are either turning away from this utterance, or we are listening to it and going up higher.
MARK
16:14 ¶Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SH 25:28-31
We must go and do likewise, else we are not improving the great blessings which our Master worked and suffered to bestow upon us.
SH 571:12 listen (only)
. . . listen and be wise.
PUBLICATIONS QUOTATION
“Heaven at hand”
By Gerald Stanwell
Christian Science Sentinel
October 16, 1978
Heaven is never beyond reach. God’s thoughts are heavenly, and they are coming to us continually. Belief in the unavailability of heaven and God has impelled the illusion that individuals must strive—singly or in religious groups—to be heard by Deity. Jacob’s experience in the wilderness exposes this doctrinal mistake. Having cheated his brother of a firstborn’s customary blessing, he was expecting no special favors from God. Nevertheless, the vision he had in a dream holds a vital message for all mankind.
The message is that God is ever at hand to bless all. The essence of Jacob’s dream was communication: “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”
Jacob had made no apparent effort to talk to God. Yet he was forced to reason, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.” He further concluded, “This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Here was a newborn conviction of God’s presence etched on his awakening thought. He had not realized until then the great and overwhelming significance of this sacred presence.
Mrs. Eddy writes: “Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation nor report goes from material body to Mind. The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man.”
We need to apply the healing truth of real communication, of the everlasting unity between God and man. Mrs. Eddy writes, “Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the communicator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and humanity.” Only the Christ, the true idea of God, can bring heaven to every child, man, and woman, here and now. Through this Science of Christ, anyone can find needed inspiration and begin to prove the utility and presence of God’s thoughts.