Responsive Reading
Ps. 30:2O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.
11Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
Mark 6:34And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.
10:46. . . and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimæus, the son of Timæus, sat by the highway side begging.
47And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
48And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.
49And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee.
50And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus.
51And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.
52And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.
Section 1
The Bible
Psalms 100:3 (to ;)
3Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
II Corinthians 5:1, 4
1For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
4For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
I Corinthians 2:11, 12
11For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Ephesians 5:9
9(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesby Mary Baker Eddy
277:7–9 As
As God Himself is good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be immortal.
191:4
As mortals give up the delusion that there is more than one Mind, more than one God, man in God’s likeness will appear, and this eternal man will include in that likeness no material element.
311:28
Matter, sin, and mortality lose all supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence. But the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by these phases of mortality.
190:17
Human
frailty
This mortal seeming is temporal; it never merges into immortal being, but finally disappears, and immortal man, spiritual and eternal, is found to be the real man.
428:8
To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, — this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, “whose builder and maker is God.”
262:7
By putting “off the old man with his deeds,” mortals “put on immortality.”
Section 2
The Bible
Psalms 144:3, 11
3Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!
11Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood:
Isaiah 49:22
22Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
Isaiah 54:11, 13
11O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
13And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.
Isaiah 43:6, 7, 21
6I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;
7Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
21This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.
Science and Health
516:24–29
Genesis i. 27. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
To emphasize this momentous thought, it is repeated that God made man in His own image, to reflect the divine Spirit.
502:29
There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God.
517:8
The ideal man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.
68:4
Sometime we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has created men and women in Science. We ought to weary of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which hinders our highest selfhood.
265:5
Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, — they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, — in order that sin and mortality may be put off.
249:5 (only)
Let the “male and female” of God’s creating appear.
Section 3
The Bible
Psalms 139:23, 24
23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Romans 13:12, 13 (to ;)
12The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
13Let us walk honestly, as in the day;
Genesis 32:1, 9, 11, 24–30
1And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
9And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee:
11Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.
24And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
25And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
26And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
27And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
28And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
29And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
30And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
Science and Health
567:3–6 Truth
Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God.
308:16–28
Wrestling
of Jacob
Jacob was alone, wrestling with error, — struggling with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter with its false pleasures and pains, — when an angel, a message from Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew, or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual strength in this Peniel of divine Science. Then said the spiritual evangel: “Let me go, for the day breaketh;” that is, the light of Truth and Love dawns upon thee. But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light until his nature was transformed.
201:7–5 Truth
Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and “all things are become new.” Passions, selfishness, false appetites, hatred, fear, all sensuality, yield to spirituality, and the superabundance of being is on the side of God, good.
The uses
of truth
We cannot fill vessels already full. They must first be emptied. Let us disrobe error. Then, when the winds of God blow, we shall not hug our tatters close about us.
The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love. Christian perfection is won on no other basis.
Grafting holiness upon unholiness, supposing that sin can be forgiven when it is not forsaken, is as foolish as straining out gnats and swallowing camels.
The scientific unity which exists between God and man must be wrought out in life-practice, and God’s will must be universally done.
296:4–6, 9 (only)
Progress is born of experience. It is the ripening of mortal man, through which the mortal is dropped for the immortal.
The old man with his deeds must be put off.
547:28
Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal.
Section 4
The Bible
Jeremiah 1:4–7 the
4the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
5Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
6Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.
7But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
Galatians 4:6 God
6God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
John 4:7, 9, 10, 15–19, 25 I know, 26, 28, 29
7There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
9Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
10Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
15The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
16Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
17The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
18For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
19The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
25I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.
26Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.
28The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men,
29Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?
Science and Health
593:4
Prophet. A spiritual seer; disappearance of material sense before the conscious facts of spiritual Truth.
85:12
The Samaritan woman said: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”
26:10–14, 16
Christ’s
demonstration
The Christ was the Spirit which Jesus implied in his own statements: “I am the way, the truth, and the life;” “I and my Father are one.” This Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him.
His mission was to reveal the Science of celestial being, to prove what God is and what He does for man.
520:7–10
The absolute ideal, man, is no more seen nor comprehended by mortals, than is his infinite Principle, Love. Principle and its idea, man, are coexistent and eternal.
302:3–9
Identity
not lost
The material body and mind are temporal, but the real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the real man is not lost, but found through this explanation; for the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and remains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his.
99:23
The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God’s spiritual, perfect man.
430:3–5
Life
all-inclusive
Mortal mind must part with error, must put off itself with its deeds, and immortal manhood, the Christ ideal, will appear.
Section 5
The Bible
Job 33:4
4The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.
Matthew 4:23, 24
23And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
Science and Health
369:16
The Christ
treatment
Jesus never asked if disease were acute or chronic, and he never recommended attention to laws of health, never gave drugs, never prayed to know if God were willing that a man should live. He understood man, whose Life is God, to be immortal, and knew that man has not two lives, one to be destroyed and the other to be made indestructible.
553:6
Mortal thought must obtain a better basis, get nearer the truth of being, or health will never be universal, and harmony will never become the standard of man.
184:1–2, 27
The so-called laws of health are simply laws of mortal belief.
A woman, whom I cured of consumption, always breathed with great difficulty when the wind was from the east. I sat silently by her side a few moments. Her breath came gently. The inspirations were deep and natural. I then requested her to look at the weather-vane. She looked and saw that it pointed due east. The wind had not changed, but her thought of it had and so her difficulty in breathing had gone. The wind had not produced the difficulty. My metaphysical treatment changed the action of her belief on the lungs, and she never suffered again from east winds, but was restored to health.
425:15–26
The lungs
re-formed
Mortal man will be less mortal, when he learns that matter never sustained existence and can never destroy God, who is man’s Life. When this is understood, mankind will be more spiritual and know that there is nothing to consume, since Spirit, God, is All-in-all. What if the belief is consumption? God is more to a man than his belief, and the less we acknowledge matter or its laws, the more immortality we possess. Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew.
496:9–14
Condition
of progress
We all must learn that Life is God. Ask yourself: Am I living the life that approaches the supreme good? Am I demonstrating the healing power of Truth and Love? If so, then the way will grow brighter “unto the perfect day.” Your fruits will prove what the understanding of God brings to man.
215:23–24
Every quality and condition of mortality is lost, swallowed up in immortality.
Section 6
The Bible
Psalms 139:1
1O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
Psalms 17:8, 15 I will
8Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
15I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Science and Health
516:9–13, 21
Love imparts
beauty
God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in truthfulness, God in goodness, which impart their own peace and permanence. Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light.
Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.
81:17–18
Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science cannot help being immortal.