Bible Study from May 25th, 2019
He Left Not Himself Without Witness
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Soul and Body
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Bible Study Questions and Readings
“Why do students need the Bible? Because it is the Word of God, the revelation of Truth, and is recognized to be such by all Christians. To the Christian Scientist, it might be likened to the flying field from which Science and Health takes off. It is important that strangers to our services learn how the Bible is used by Christian Scientists. They will then be relieved of the fear that there is any departure in Christian Science from the teachings of the Bible. Our Sunday service starts with the Bible and ends with the Bible and returns to it many times during the service. The Bible is solid ground to which people are accustomed, and on which they feel safe.
From Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Precepts, by Gilbert Carpenter
Topic:“He left not himself without witness.”(Acts 14:17)
Moderator:Jeremy from NJ
Bible Readings: Acts 3; Acts 14
Be prepared to discuss the following:
- Define “witness.”
- Give examples from the readings of ways in which the apostles bore witness to Christ, Truth.
- Give examples from the readings of people bearing false witness. In each case, was it ignorant or malicious?
- Did the apostles have any other job than to bear witness? Do we?
- Give examples of how Christian Science has given you the ability and opportunity to bear witness.
Notes from the Discussion
Witness
One who gives testimony; as, the witnesses in court agreed in all essential facts. To bear testimony. To give evidence.
— 1828 Websters Dictionary
God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be without a witness or proof of His own nature.
— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 303
The discovery and founding of Christian Science has cost more than thirty years of unremitting toil and unrest; but, comparing those with the joy of knowing that the sinner and the sick are helped thereby, that time and eternity bear witness to this gift of God to the race, I am the debtor.
— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, 382
But only God can make a tree.
— From “Trees” By Joyce Kilmer
They now saw him walking, and praising God (v. 9), and perhaps took notice of a change in his mind; for he was now as loud in praising God as he had before been in begging relief. The best evidence that it was a complete cure was that he now praised God for it.
— from Acts 3 Matthew Henry Bible Commentary, 1875, by Matthew Henry
Godlikeness
Kindle the watch-fires of unselfed love, and they throw a light upon the uncomplaining agony in the life of our Lord; they open the enigmatical seals of the angel, standing in the sun, a glorified spiritual idea of the ever-present God — in whom there is no darkness, but all is light, and man’s immortal being.
— from 1902 by Mary Baker Eddy, page 16
“Worry is the interest paid on a problem you don’t have.”
— by Stephen Evans
To The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston
No one could buy, sell, or mortgage my gift as I had it conveyed. Thus the case rested, and I supposed the trustee-deed was legal; but this was God’s business, not mine. Our building were such as error could not control. I knew that to God’s gift, foundation and superstructure, no one could hold a wholly material title. The land, and the church standing on it, must be conveyed through a type representing the true nature of the gift; a type morally and spiritually inalienable, but materially questionable — even after the manner that all spiritual good comes to Christian Scientists, to the end of taxing their faith in God, and their adherence to the superiority of the claims of Spirit over matter or merely legal titles. No one could buy, sell, or mortgage my gift as I had it conveyed. Thus the case rested, and I supposed the trustee-deed was legal; but this was God’s business, not mine. Our church was prospered by the right hand of His righteousness. … Unity prevailed, — till mortal man sought to know who owned God’s temple, and adopted and urged only the material side of this question.
The lot of land which I donated I redeemed from under mortgage. The foundation on which our church was to be built had to be rescued from the grasp of legal power, and now it must be put back into the arms of Love, if we would not be found fighting against God.
— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 140
Silencing self, alias rising above corporeal personality,nis what reforms the sinner and destroys sin. In the ratio that the testimony of material personal sense ceases, sin diminishes, until the false claim called sin is finally lost for lack of witness.
— from Retrospection and Introspection by Mary Baker Eddy, page 67
Has Mrs. Eddy lost her power to heal?
Has the sun forgotten to shine, and the planets to revolve around it? Who is it that discovered, demonstrated, and teaches Christian Science? That one, whoever it be, does understand something of what cannot be lost. Thousands in the field of metaphysical healing, whose lives are worthy testimonials, are her students, and they bear witness to this fact. Instead of losing her power to heal, she is demonstrating the power of Christian Science over all obstacles that envy and malice would fling in her path. The reading of her book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” is curing hundreds at this very time; and the sick, unasked, are testifying thereto.
— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 54