The Greatest Thing in the World

It's great fun and so beneficial to ask ourselves questions while we read a text. So, as we close our current book - Paul's letter to the church at Corinth in Greece (I Corinthians) - we might ask:

1. Why did Paul cover the topics he did? and 2. So what?

Today I've done a little background reading and found that Paul's letters didn't reach just his friends at Corinth, but very soon many other groups as well. I wonder if that sat well on Paul's shoulders, or if the message was then sometimes misconstrued? As we read, are we mindful of Paul's original intent?
We cannot superimpose today's life-style and customs on to Paul's words, which we offered to a specific readership so long ago.

As we leave this book, I am left with an over-arching message of great love. Of sincerity, kindness, generosity, even-temper, good manners. (Check out Henry Drummond's great sermon "The Greatest Thing in the World" for super inspiration.) How can we get along better? What does is mean to learn to love more? Paul's example was Christ Jesus. Our example is Christ Jesus. Jesus' resurrection was the pinnacle of pure love for his fellow man.

What does it take to love like that in my church community, my family, my workplace?

Julie Swannell

Pray and sing - with spirit and understanding

I have not found I Corinthians an easy read, or study.  It seems that I need to grow a great deal in spiritual understanding.  Which brings me to one of my very favourite quotes from the Bible –

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. I Cor. 14:15.

 

Joyce Voysey

A letter in the post?

A friend mentioned that he had received a REAL letter (i.e. paper and ink in a posted envelope) from his Dad the other day. He LOVED getting it!! Such a special thing these days.

 

Thinking about Paul's letters, I imagine they would have been highly cherished.

 

How did they share the contents? Were they read out loud? Did everyone gather for dinner at someone's house so they could all get the message at the same time? Who delivered the letters? Was it a scroll? Could all the church members read? Were just "members" allowed to hear what Paul had to say? Did they memorise some parts?

 

It's not like today when we can just run off another copy. And such LONG letters they were. One interested in having a personal copy would surely have had to invest quite some time in the copying process. And what language did Paul write in? Presumably Greek. How did they preserve them? Have any survived in their original form? How grateful we are to those far-seeing people who recognized the value of what they had in their hands and preserved the message, which, as it turns out, was not just for their time, but for all time.

Julie

Even though it refers to Paul's second letter, I know readers will love the following poem.

A letter from Love

II Corinthians 3:3

By JUNE M. F. WILDEMAN

From the July 6, 1981 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

     

What joy—a letter
from someone loved!
Paul wrote long ago
that we are "the epistle of Christ...
Written not with ink,
but with the Spirit of the living God."
Let me read you—
each man, woman, and child—
as a unique communication
from our loving Father.

Enlisted men and women

I did mention the book The Story of Christian Science Wartime Activities 1939-1946, didn’t I? 

It is so good, and I can see how it has leavened my thought for many years.  My copy of the book came from the Midland (Western Australia) Christian Science Society.

This time I am taken with a piece on page 193.  The chapter is about Wartime Workers and the fine work they did.  And the quote:

“…another comment from an active Worker who, in this particular instance, was addressing a young soldier whom he had brought through a serious injury and a period of discouragement: “Joe,’ he remarked to the young man, “you and I as Christian Scientists have ‘enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death,’ as Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health (p. 450).  We are fighting the greatest battle that will ever be fought by anyone.  It is battle with self, with a false sense of man, a false sense of God, a false sense of Life.  We cannot retreat; we cannot go AWOL; we cannot compromise.  We must demand an unconditional surrender of these false beliefs.  Everybody must fight this battle sooner or later, here or hereafter.”

Now back to I Corinthians.

 

 

Almost always when I read a chapter, some one idea stands out to me and sends me on a chase for more information.  With chapter 5 it is “a little leaven leavens the whole lump.”  (verse 6)  What struck me is that the chapter is addressing the fornication of one man with his step-mother.  And I had had the idea that the leaven of this quote was a good thing.  Here it seems to be saying that the sin of one man can permeate the whole Christian group.

It is very noticeable that there is with any good idea, often a bad use for it.  For example: the Internet, such a useful wonder, can be used for evil means.  We have to get the absolute, spiritual sense of things. 

Anyway, I looked up leaven on the Internet and found a very interesting piece about Jesus parable about the woman and the leaven -

http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/3589

Practically every word is examined.  I would love to hear what folk think about the article on bibletools.

Joyce Voysey

Church building and the "second coming"

Chapter 3 has me thinking of the Manual provision for organizing churches.  I had only recently taken new note of the fact that the By-law states, “A member of this Church who obeys its By-laws and is a loyal exemplary Christian Scientist working in the Field, is eligible to form a church in conformity with Sect. 7 of this Article, and to have church services conducted by reading the Scriptures and the Christian Science textbook.”  One member!  Of course, this came to mind because of Paul’s statement, “I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth.”  (verse 10)

But that one member has to gather about him/her a Journal-listed practitioner and “sixteen loyal Christian Scientists, four of whom are members of The Mother Church.”

 The thought I had recently about this was, is it always necessary for one person to be sort of in charge of the church; to do the mothering, so to speak.

 

Chapter 4 gave me a tiny insight into the coming of the Christ, the return of Christ.  Ever since Jesus was crucified and rose from the grave and ascended people have looked for a Second Coming.  At first this second coming was expected very soon after the ascension.  After a couple of thousand years, the Christ came in the form of the Comforter promised by Isaiah, Christian Science.  (Note: The Christ had already come to Isaiah’s thought, hadn’t it?)  However, not everyone, or every Christian denomination accepted that it was the return of the Christ.

The Jews think that the Messiah has not yet come, the majority of Christians believe that the Christ has not yet returned.

But the coming of the Christ is to each individual, like Paul says, “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.” (I Cor. 4:5)  There is no need for a return of the man Jesus for the Christ to come to each individual.  Indeed man already has “the Mind which was also in Christ Jesus.”

 Hymn 34 of the Christian Science Hymnal comes to mind –

Hymn 34

Marion Susan Campbell

HOME

Arr. from W. A. Mozart

Christ comes again with holy power,

To lift our blinded eyes to see;
The sick are healed, the sinner blest,
As on that eve in Galilee.

Once more the lonely heart is fed.

Who dwells with Love hath perfect ease,
Faith, hope, and joy are with us all;
Great are companions such as these.

 The weak and thirsty are refreshed,

Again each empty cup is filled;
The tender Christ is here to bless,
And all the storms of earth are stilled.

In Truth there is no pain or death

Nor any shades of coming night;
The promise of our God still stands:
At eventide it shall be light.

Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed): Most English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use include the following statements: "...he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. ... We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."

The Bible says: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" Col.3:4.

All of that reasoning came through a little thought about the words, “until the Christ come.”

Joyce Voysey

Overcoming

Oh Boy!  Am I lagging behind this month!

Thank you Julie for those quotes from Mrs. Eddy.  A statement that stood out to me was about going to hospitals to cure moral maladies!  How that idea opens avenues of thought to the student of Christian Science.

On reading chapter 2 of I Corinthians I wrote: “Oh!  What we can accomplish when we realise we have the mind of Christ!  Exactly like Paul, we can overcome ‘weakness, and fear and much trembling.’”  It is not easy for us to think of Paul as less than strong in the Lord.  But it is through overcoming such weakness that he became strong - as can we. 

That word “overcoming” set a note in my thought about the book The Story of Christian Science Wartime Activities 1939-1946.  An inspiring record.  “Overcoming in the Pacific and Asia” is the name of a chapter in the book, but, it seems to me that the whole book is about overcoming.

Come to think of it, I will list the chapter titles here –

1.  Preparations of the Heart

2. Forerunners of Organized Wartime Activities

3. The Christian Science War Relief Committee

4. American Sewing Groups and Shipping Depots

5. British Almoners and Clothing Distribution

6. Chusetts: Comfort on Wheels

7. War Relief Committees: Canada and Overseas

8. The Christian Science Camp Welfare Activities

9. British Shepherds of the Flock

10. United States and Other Wartime Ministers

11. Christian Science Army and Navy Chaplains

12. Volunteer Wartime Workers

13. The Mother-Comforter: Special Cases

14. Service Centers: Home Follows the Uniforms

15. Europe: Not since the Catacombs

16. “Where two or three are gathered together”

17. Overcoming in the Pacific and Asia

18. Keeping Church Alive in Prison Camps

19. Literature with a Mission Goes Through

20. Fulfillment: Postwar Relief Activities

24. Signs Following

25. Growth in Stature

Now I will have to read some of it again.  Of particular interest to me is the chapter about prison camps, one of my brothers having been a prisoner of the Japanese in Burma.  And there is John Wyndham’s wonderful book, The Ultimate Freedom, which is an account of his imprisonment in Indonesia and his wonderful overcoming.  Always a joy to re-read.

Haven’t got very far with I Corinthians, have I?

Joyce Voysey

Exquisite care for the flock

As I read Paul's letter to his flock in Corinth, I am taken by the similarities with Mary Baker Eddy's relationship with her growing flock. Things don't always chug along smoothly!

Paul tells them they need to pull together, not take sides. His instruction always comes back to his own teacher, Christ Jesus

It is so helpful to read Eddy's correspondence November 28, 1889 (quoted in Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait by Lyman Powell - p. 344) -

"The Church of Christ (Scientist) in Boston was my patient seven years. When I would think she was well nigh healed a relapse came and a large portion of her flock would forsake the better portion, and betake themselves to the world's various hospitals for the cure of moral maladies. These straying sheep would either set up claims of improvements on Christian Science and oppose the Mother Church, or sink out of sight in religious history. This state of the Church has lasted ten years. It even grew rapidly worse when about three years ago I for lack of time to adjust her continual difficulties and a conscientious purpose to labor in higher fields and broader ways for the advancement of the glorious hope of Christian Science put students in my pulpit.

"As one who is treating patients without success remembers that they are depending on material hygiene, consulting their own organizations and thus leaning on matter instead of Spirit, saith to these relapsing patients, 'now quit your material props and leave all for Christ, spiritual power, and you will recover.' So I admonish this Church after ten years of sad experience in material bonds to cast them off and cast her net on the spiritual side of Christianity..."

Later (p. 347), Powell notes Eddy's "characteristic timeliness" when she wrote to a student: "You recall his [Jesus']...turning water into wine for the marriage feast, and even being baptized to meet the necessity of 'suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." His age or the age in which he lived required what he did and his wisdom caused his concession to its requirements in some instances. Just as this age requires organization to maintain Christian Science."

So, back to Paul.

Some parts of Paul’s letter (written about A.D. 55) to the Corinthians might make us a bit uncomfortable. It’s pretty personal. Eugene Petersen (the Message) helps me here. In Paul’s time, the “religious” were in the minority; pagans the majority. In fact, Petersen tells us that “Paul grew up in a pagan city…” and that “He asked God which parts of his heritage were moral absolutes and which were cultural preferences he could set aside when relating to non-Jews like the Corinthians.”

And so today, we need to be asking God to help us be aware of the difference between “moral absolutes” and “cultural preferences” which might change over time.

Paul loved these people. He left no stone unturned in his effort to guide them in their journey.  

Let’s do a little exercise to get an overall feel for the letter. Let’s take the first and final sentence or two in each chapter along with an arresting passage in the middle to see the flow of ideas. I’ve updated a few of the seventeenth century words, but otherwise left the KJV as is:

 

Chapter 1 – Introduction and concerns

Opening: Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother to the church of God which is at Corinth

Verse 23: We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness

Close: As it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the Lord.

Chapter 2 – Credentials and purpose

Opening: I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.

Verse 10: the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

Close: We have the mind of Christ.

Chapter 3 – Sorting out a few things

Opening: I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

Verse 6: I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

Close: And you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

Chapter 4 – We are servants, not masters

Opening: Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Verse 5: Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

Close: Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?

Chapter 5 – Intimate relations

Opening: It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you…

Verse 7: Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened.

Close: Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

 

Chapter 6 – Other relations
Opening: Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?

Verse 11: …but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Close: You are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Chapter 7 – Marriage… or not

Opening: Now concerning the things you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless….

Verse 19: Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.

Close: I think also that I have the Spirit of God.

Chapter 8 – Paul’s commission

Opening: Now as touching things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.

Verse 6: To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, and we by him.

Close: Wherefore if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

Chapter 9 – Historical lessons

Opening: Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not you my work in the Lord?

Verse 11: If we have sown to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?

Close: I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

Chapter 10 - Choices and manners

Opening: Moreover brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.

Verse 17: For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.

Close: …I please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.

Chapter 11 – Christ authority

Opening: Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

Verse 31: If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

Close: If any man hunger, let him eat at home; that you come not together to condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come.

Chapter 12 – Spiritual gifts

Opening: Now concerning spiritual gifts brethren, I would not have you ignorant.

Verse 6: There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which works all in all.

Close: Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet I show you a more excellent way.

Chapter 13 – The Greatest Thing in the World

Opening: though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Verse 8: Charity never fails.

Close: And now abides faith, hope, charity these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Chapter 14 – Serious praying

Opening: Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.

Verse 8:  If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

Close: Let all things be done decently and in order.

Chapter 15 - Resurrection

Opening: Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, and wherein you stand.

Verse 14: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

Close: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Chapter 16 – Helping others

Opening: Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do you.

Verse 9: A great door and effectual is opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

Close: My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

A lovely place to end.

Julie Swannell

Paul's mission and message

Reading this letter gives us some clues about Paul’s mission, how he perceived his calling and what he felt was his overarching message to them.

 

Chapter 1

Paul was absolutely certain that he had been “called” by Jesus according to God’s plan, and sent to “the church” in Corinth. This letter is to the believers, those “cleaned up by Jesus” (The Message - Msg).

 

So, who did he think Jesus was? He refers to Jesus Christ as “the Lord” (“the Master” – Msg), one who is evidence of “the grace of God” (“free and open access to God given by Jesus” – Msg).

 

Paul assures his readers that Christ has enriched them in every way and this has been “confirmed” (“clearly verified” - Msg) in their lives. They are not lacking in any respect. In fact they were “called unto the fellowship of His son Jesus Christ our Lord.”  

 

Now comes the crunch line in verse 10. They have to learn to get along with one another, see each other as one family, not little factions. With clarity and humility, Paul explains his role (v. 17): “God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him” (Msg). What a grand purpose for our work today – to collect a following for him!

 

The King James Version stunningly gives Christ as “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (v. 24), while The Message has “God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.”

 

And finally, Christ Jesus is described as “made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” i.e. “…none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ” (Msg).

 

How wonderful that this message still rings true for us today.

 

Julie Swannell

Ancient Corinth

I love to learn about the apostle Paul. He is such a stirring character. But I need to get the geography right. So, where is Corinth, and what do we know about it?

Wikipedia tells us -

Corinth (/ˈkɔrɪnθ/; Greek: Κόρινθος Kórinthos), was a city-state (polis) on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta.

For Christians, Corinth is known from the two books First Corinthians and Second Corinthians in the New Testament.

Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities of Greece, with a population of 90,000 in 400 BC. After the Romans built a new city in its place and made it the provincial capital of Greece in 44 BC, the city's population was between 50,000 to 700,000 according to different sources.

The Oxford Bible Atlas advises that it was a “Greek city, important from early times; sacked by Romans 146BC; re-founded by Julius Caesar; most important city of Rom. Province of Achaia. From apostolic times there was here an important Christian community.”

Corinth is mentioned several times in the Bible e.g. Acts 18:1–18, I Cor. 1:2, 16:5-6, II Cor 1:1, 1: 23, 12:14, 13:1; II Tim 4:20.

Acts 18 tells us that Paul went to Corinth after visiting Athens. It was in Corinth that he discovered Aquila, a Jew born in Pontus, and his wife, Priscilla. They were “newly arrived from Italy, part of the general expulsion of Jews from Rome ordered by Claudius. Paul moved in with them, and they worked together at their common trade of tent making. But every Sabbath he was at the meeting place, doing his best to convince both Jews and Greeks about Jesus.” (The Message – Eugene Petersen). Even though there was a great deal of arguing from the listeners there “a great many Corinthians believed…” (ibid) and Paul was encouraged by a dream in which “the Master” told him not to be intimidated – “You have no idea how many people I have on my side in this city.”  So Paul stuck it out, remaining there for a further eighteen months.

A modern writer has this:

It's easy to see why Paul chose Corinth as headquarters for his mission to the west. The city was young, dynamic, not hidebound by tradition, a mix of dislocated individuals without strong ethnic identities seeking to shed their former low status by achieving social honor and material success. Paul was not intimidated by a big, bustling, cosmopolitan hub city, with no dominant religious or intellectual tradition, for Corinth shared many characteristics with Tarsus, his home town, and Syrian Antioch, his home church city. The heart of the city, the forum, was filled with temples and shrines to the emperor and various members of his family, built alongside temples to the older Greek gods such as Apollo. Apollo's son, Asklepios, the god of healing, had a shrine there as well as at Epidaurus, the ancient site of miracle healings, about 50 miles southeast.

Book club members might also find the following web site helpful: http://www.mpumc.org/uploads/file/corinth.pdf

It seems that I Corinithians was written from Ephesus and that it is just one of maybe four that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.

Here is a painting of St. Paul by Bartolomeo Montagna.

Julie Swannell

Philosopy, knowledge, and the message of the cross

I Corinthians.  May, 2015

Well, so far I have only read the Introductions to I Corinthians in various translations and references books.

The Message. Wow!  Here is what Eugene Peterson has written in his Introduction:

When people become Christians, they don’t at the same moment become nice.  This always comes as something of a surprise.  Conversion to Christ and his ways doesn’t automatically furnish a person with impeccable manners and suitable morals.

The people of Corinth had a reputation in the ancient world as an unruly, hard-drinking, sexually promiscuous bunch of people.  When Paul arrived with the Message and many of them became believers in Jesus, they brought their reputation with them right into the church.

Paul spent a year and a half with them as their pastor, going over the Message of the “good news” in detail, showing them how to live out this new life of salvation and holiness as a community of believers.  Then he went on his way to other towns and churches.

Sometime later Paul received a report from one of the Corinthian families that in his absence things had more or less fallen apart.  He also received a letter from Corinth asking for help.  Factions had developed, morals were in disrepair, worship had degenerated into selfish grabbing for the supernatural.  It was the kind of thing that might have been expected from Corinthians!

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a classic of pastoral response: affectionate, firm, clear, and unswerving in the conviction that God among them, revealed in Jesus and present in his Holy Spirit, continued to be the central issue in their lives, regardless of how much of a mess they had made of things.  Paul doesn’t disown them as brother and sister Christians, doesn’t throw them out because of their bad behaviour, and doesn’t fly into a tirade over their irresponsible ways.  He takes it all more or less in stride, but also takes them by the hand and goes over all the old ground again, directing them in how to work all the glorious details of God’s saving love into their love for one another.

I guess that the much loved I Corinthians Chapter 13 gives us the state of mind which Paul brought to the situation.

But I must start with Chapter 1.

Chapter 1, I Corinthians.

In the introduction to the Bible book, Paul sets the scene by proclaiming the absolute truth about the  community he is writing to (Verses 1 to 9).  These verses have been given the sub-heading (there is a name for these sub-headings; I do not recall what it is.): “Introduction” in my A New New Testament and “Salutation” in the New Revised Standard Version.  These headings and sub-headings are not supplied by the author; rather by the publisher, I gather.  For, as we have seen, they vary from one translation to another.

I was interested to find the word “philosopher/s/y,”  in verses 19 to 21 in A New New Testament and one other translation.  I would like to quote here –

18. The message of the cross is indeed mere folly to those who are in the path of ruin, but to us who are in the path of salvation it is the power of God. 

 

19. For scripture says: “I will bring the philosophy of the philosophers to naught, and the shrewdness of the shrewd I will bring to nothing.”

20. Where is the philosopher?  Where is the teacher of the Law?  Where the disputant of to-day?  Has God not shown the world’s philosophy to be folly? 

21.  For since the world, in God’s wisdom, did not by its philosophy learn to know God, God saw fit, by the “folly” of our proclamation, to save those who believe in the Anointed One? 

22.  While Judeans ask for miraculous signs, and Greeks study philosophy, 

23. we are proclaiming Christ crucified – to the Judeans an obstacle, to the gentiles mere folly, 

24 but to those who have received the call, whether Judeans or Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God? 

25. For God’s “folly” is wiser than people, and God’s “weakness” is stronger than people.

Noah Webster has: Philosophy – literally, the love of wisdom.  But in modern acceptation, philosophy is a general term denoting an explanation of the reasons of things; or an investigation of all phenomena, both of mind and of matter.  When applied to any particular department of knowledge, it denotes the collection of general laws or principles…Thus, that branch of philosophy which treats of God, etc. is called theology; that which treats of nature is called physics…..

I am reminded of Mrs. Eddy’s definition of “knowledge” in Science and Health p. 590: “Evidence obtained from the five corporeal senses; mortality; beliefs and opinions; human theories, doctrines, hypotheses; that which is not divine and is the origin of sin, sickness, and death; the opposite of spiritual Truth and understanding.”

Now doesn’t that explain it as Paul meant it to be understood?  Wonderful!

 

Joyce Voysey

"The teachings of St. Paul are as useful today as when they were first written."

I know we are supposed to be reading First Corinthians by now, but I'm still on Lyman Powell and drinking in all the lovely bits of information he has to share.

For instance, when writing about the Church Manual, Mrs. Eddy wrote to the Directors of The Mother Church: "Never abandon the By-laws...If I am not personally with you, the Word of God, and my instructions in the By-laws have led you hitherto and ... the teachings of St. Paul are as useful to-day as when they were first written."

Later, Powell identifies one of the very unique aspects of Mrs. Eddy when he points out that "...never, perhaps, in all history did another woman appear to understand as clearly...the unreality of error, the transitory nature of untruth" (p. 228).

Of particular note in relation to this week's Bible Lesson is the passage on page 233 where Powell quotes one of Mrs. Eddy's students, who wrote about her: "...Mrs. Eddy untiringly reiterated to her household...the Master's warning; -- "Watch." ...her indefatigable call to them that they have oil in their lamps, and watch to keep them trimmed and burning, -- so that evil's serpentine machinations be foreseen to the forestalling of its workings through their sleepiness, their unwariness, or their insufficiently spiritual aliveness."

This might make as smile: in discussing Paul's admonition to "put off the old man" Eddy "spoke of putting off, not keeping, the old man" (p. 245)! And I was arrested by the beautiful reference to resurrection's "perfect freedom of individuality."

It is good to be reminded of Mary Baker Eddy's early thoughts on newspapers. She wrote (1883, when she was establishing the Journal) that: "Looking over the newspapers of the day, one naturally reflects that it is dangerous to live, so loaded with disease seems the very air. These descriptions carry fears to many minds, to be depicted in some future time upon the body. A periodical of our own will counteract to some extent this public nuisance; for through our paper, at the price at which we shall issue it, we shall be able to reach many homes with healing, purifying thought." By 1908 she was ready to launch a newspaper of her own. And (page 249) "Later, at the request of the Board of Trustees, she expressed in print the desire that Christian Scientists should subscribe..."

JS

Book for May: First Corinthians

 

 

First Corinthians

 

For May we will read Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which includes many beautiful passages, including this one: “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. ..Know ye not that they which run in a race run all…”

 

Invitation: If you would like to write your thoughts about Paul’s letter on our blog, just send an email to csredcliffe@hotmail.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tireless worker for humanity

I feel so uplifted after having attended a workshop yesterday by Christian Science lecturer Nate Frederick. A continuing theme in Nate’s discussion was the way he turned to prayer for answers to every situation he found himself in – from altitude sickness to broken sandals on a long hike. I loved how Nate included powerful PowerPoint slides to capture helpful quotes and illustrate the ideas shared. Thank you to Christian Science Society Wynnum for sponsoring this event.

Nate reminded us about the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science too. Mary Baker Eddy was a tireless worker for humanity. Her work was never exclusive, never for a particular segment of society.

I was so pleased to read Miss Shannon’s account of Mrs. Eddy’s teaching on how we need to “detect, correct and overcome error” – see Lyman Powell’s Mary Baker Eddy – A Life Sized Portrait p. 197. Miss Shannon wrote: “She showed us that, if we neglected to do our duty and did what was wrong without detecting, correcting and overcoming error, but continued repeating the same mistakes and justifying ourselves, the suffering which would result would be simple interest, which we would have to pay…” And on the next page, Powell tells us about Eddy’s “Class of ‘98” where she asked: “Why make so much ado about nothing? Error is no more than a row of ciphers added from one wall to another, unless you place a unit with it and make something out of it.”

It’s so helpful to get some dates clear, e.g.

1875--publication of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

1883—founding of The Christian Science Journal
1898—founding of the Christian Science Sentinel
1908—founding of The Christian Science Monitor

Julie Swannell