WEDNESDAY EVENING READINGS
May 2, 2018
Hymns: 83, 5, 371
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The Bible
&
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy

ISAIAH
52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem:
2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
3 For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.

JEREMIAH
29:12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
14 And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity

LUKE
4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

SH 332:9-15
Jesus was born of Mary. 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.

JOHN (Good News Translation)
8:31 …Jesus said to those who believed in him, “If you obey my teaching, you are really my disciples; 32 you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 “We are the descendants of Abraham,” they answered, “and we have never been anybody’s slaves. What do you mean, then, by saying, ‘You will be free’?”
34 Jesus said to them, “I am telling you the truth: everyone who sins is a slave of sin.
35 A slave does not belong to a family permanently, but a son belongs there forever.
36 If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free.

GALATIANS (Good News Translation)
5:1 Freedom is what we have—Christ has set us free! Stand, then, as free people, and do not allow yourselves to become slaves again.

SH 131:26-30
The mission of Jesus confirmed prophecy, and explained the so-called miracles of olden time as natural demonstrations of the divine power, demonstrations which were not understood. Jesus’ works established his claim to the Messiahship.

SH 481:3-5
God’s being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

ISAIAH
58:6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.
9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer;

LUKE (J.B. Phillips)
13:10-12 It happened that he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day. In the congregation was a woman who for eighteen years had been ill from some psychological cause; she was bent double and was quite unable to straighten herself up. When Jesus noticed her, he called her and said, “You are set free from your illness!”
13-14 And he put his hands upon her, and at once she stood upright and praised God. But the president of the synagogue, in his annoyance at Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath, announced to the congregation, “There are six days in which men may work. Come on one of them and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day!”
15-16 But the Lord answered him, saying, “You hypocrites, every single one of you unties his ox or his ass from the stall on the Sabbath day and leads him away to water! This woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom you all know Satan has kept bound for eighteen years—surely she should be released from such bonds on the Sabbath day!”

SH 224:28-4
Truth brings the elements of liberty. On its banner is the Soul-inspired motto, “Slavery is abolished.” The power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love. What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to God? Whence cometh it? What is it that binds man with iron shackles to sin, sickness, and death? Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free.

SH 226:14
God has built a higher platform of human rights, and He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not made through code or creed, but in demonstration of “on earth peace, good-will toward men.” Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine Science rends asunder these fetters, and man’s birthright of sole allegiance to his Maker asserts itself.

SH 97:21
The broadest facts array the most falsities against themselves, for they bring error from under cover. It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream, until its inarticulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion.

SH 368:2-9
The confidence inspired by Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal. Error is a coward before Truth. Divine Science insists that time will prove all this. Both truth and error have come nearer than ever before to the apprehension of mortals, and truth will become still clearer as error is self-destroyed.

ROMANS
6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

SH 114:23
Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and body. It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Science shows that what is termed matter is but the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind.
SH 373: 14-15
The fear of disease and the love of sin are the sources of man’s enslavement.

SH 226:22-2
I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servitude to an unreal master in the belief that the body governed them, rather than Mind. The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own beliefs and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of yore hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged.
SH 191:16-17
The human thought must free itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage.

SH 227: 3-20
I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error, and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed, and mortals are taught their right to freedom, so the claims of the enslaving senses must be denied and superseded. The law of the divine Mind must end human bondage, or mortals will continue unaware of man’s inalienable rights and in subjection to hopeless slavery, because some public teachers permit an ignorance of divine power, — an ignorance that is the foundation of continued bondage and of human suffering.
Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to foresee the doom of all oppression. Slavery is not the legitimate state of man. God made man free. Paul said, “I was free born.” All men should be free. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity.
SH 118:10
Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally glorified in man’s spiritual freedom.

SH 225:5
You may know when first Truth leads by the fewness and faithfulness of its followers. Thus it is that the march of time bears onward freedom’s banner. The powers of this world will fight, and will command their sentinels not to let truth pass the guard until it subscribes to their systems; but Science, heeding not the pointed bayonet, marches on. There is always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth’s standard.

SH 547: 23-25, 28-32
The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth be gained.
Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal. It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith.

SH 171:4
Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is.

SH 228:14
Mortals will someday assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God. Then they will control their own bodies through the understanding of divine Science. Dropping their present beliefs, they will recognize harmony as the spiritual reality and discord as the material unreality.

SH 227:21-25
Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: “Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!” Jesus marked out the way. Citizens of the world accept the “glorious liberty of the children of God,” and be free!

SUPPLEMENTAL READING
“Freedom, What Is It?”
By Paul Stark Seeley
Christian Science Sentinel, January 1943

Mrs. Eddy goes directly to the source of all true freedom when she says, “God’s being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss” (SH 481). “God’s being is … freedom.” Here is freedom at its source, in its divinely vital substance. The source and substance of freedom is God’s being, Life unfettered, fearless, free. God, let us remember, is Life, the only real Life in its entirety. This one Life is freedom’s selfhood. What a discovery! Freedom—inseparable from God, undeniable as God, universal as God, inherent in and never to be taken from the sons of God. With freedom God clothes Himself and all His children. His freedom is theirs, a condition of reality…
Freedom to Jesus was all a matter of understanding Truth. What truth? The only Truth, the true cause and effect, the true God and man, and he said it was to be had not by merely desiring it or striving for it, but by knowing, by becoming consciously aware that our life is spiritual, one with the unenslavable, all-free God…
God’s mandate is that mankind must be free from all fear and want, from the bondage of all sin, from the shackles of disease and malformation. Death must go. It is an archenemy of living free. The one way to gain these freedoms is through understanding prayer. Nothing less breaks the slave bonds of material beliefs. Christian Science teaches us how to pray freedom-bringing prayer. Already these freedoms are lawfully ours, every one of them, for we are now, factually, the children of the all-free God, and as His manifestation we do, we must, reflect and possess the freedom that is God’s….