Sunday, February 10th, 2019 Roundtable

Goodness never fails to receive its reward, for goodness makes life a blessing. As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing.

— from Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, page 165

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We, to-day, in this class-room, are enough to convert the world if we are of one Mind; for then the whole world will feel the influence of this Mind; as when the earth was without form, and Mind spake and form appeared.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 279: 27-2

Golden Text — “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” — I Corinthians 3 : 16

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Forum post — the temple of God by Lynda from PA

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…as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

— I Corinthians 2 : 9 (as)-12 from citation 7 in the Bible portion of this week’s lesson

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Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; andthey will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

— Luke 19: 41-44 from the Bible

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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. Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, to be divinely inspired, — yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.

— Citation 9 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 84 : 7-18

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Forum post — Putting On New Clothes by Parthens

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To suddenly drop our earthly character, and become partakers of eternal Life, without the pangs of a new birth, is morally impossible. We know, “all will be changed in the twinkling of an eye when the last trump shall sound,” but the last call of Wisdom is not the first call in the growth of Christian character; while man is selfish, unjust, hypocritical and sensual, to conclude the last call of Wisdom has been heard that awakens him to glorified being, is preposterous! Science forbids such feats of imagination, and looks us in the face with reason and revelation.

— from Science and Health, 1875, by Mary Baker Glover (Eddy), page 86

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Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God. It shows the superiority of faith by works over faith in words. Its ideas are expressed only in “new tongues;” and these are interpreted by the translation of the spiritual original into the language which human thought can comprehend. The Principle and proof of Christianity are discerned by spiritual sense. They are set forth in Jesus’ demonstrations, which show — by his healing the sick, casting out evils, and destroying death, “the last enemy that shall be destroyed,” — his disregard of matter and its so-called laws.

— Citation 5 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 209 : 31-10

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Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.

— Citation 16 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 393 : 12-15

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Forum post — Contradicting the material senses… by Jeremy from NJ

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If you ever expect to hear the voice of God, you must accept the fact that His voice is right now sending out its messages continuously, and doing this because you possess a capacity to hear it.

Man does receive and hear the voice of God when he seeks it and makes the effort to gain it, but he is not conscious of having done so until a need arises. When he voices that which he himself never knew, then he knows that it is God talking through him.

So when you seek to hear God’s voice and do not seem to do it, do not be disappointed. Every day, make the effort to open your thought and let God talk to you; and if you do not hear it with your material ears or are even conscious of it with your conscious thought, take it on good faith. Believe that it is being recorded on the tablet of your mind, that you are laying up treasure in heaven, in your spiritual consciousness, and when the right time comes, you will be able to give it out, and know what God has been saying to you, by what you say to another.

— from “Listening to God” by Gilbert Carpenter

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Forum post — The heart of prayer by Mary Singleterry

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A sick man’s thought has stalled; It is necessary to start it in right activity. When a practitioner can feel his patient’s thought take hold, so that the natural activity of the real man animates the human sense, he knows he has healed him. Christian Scientists need not feel as though activity of thought is something that will always have to be forced, or that at any time it may stop. When one functions rightly, activity of thought is far more natural and unlabored than inactivity of thought.

This letter puts the student into the last ditch, as our Leader was so fond of doing; the most notable instance being the rigid requirements she brought forth in the building of The Mother Church, which forced them to make its erection a demonstration. No doubt Mr. Johnson was pleased to receive this letter; but Mrs. Eddy’s commendation and appreciation was always to encourage and stimulate one to do better. We can tell by its contents, that he was bringing to the altar a mixed offering. He was wise in his ideas, but lacking in the demonstration of carrying them out.

The students did not understand animal magnetism then any more than they do now; they did not realize what it was that sought the life of the young child. In fact they could not always tell that the young child was dead, or when the spiritual thought left them and they picked up the threads of human thought again. Who does know when this happens? Do we not require some sharp reminder, physical exhibition or manifestation of that loss, before we realize that we have lost it?

Why is this? Because the spiritual thought and the harmonious human thought appear so similar to mortal sense. It is like a sparkling, beautifully cut gem my wife found. She took it to three jewelers, and one of them declared it to be a valuable diamond, while the remaining two said it was glass.

As we become more and more acquainted with both the human and the real — as spiritual sense is brought into activity — the distinction between them will surely become more apparent. It is only to the immature thought that the purified human mind and divine Mind seem so alike that one cannot be distinguished from the other.

One thing is sure, if desire is prayer, the more we desire to know whether it is the human mind or the divine Mind that is governing us, the surer will be our spiritual discernment. It is when we are indifferent that we remain in doubt. When we earnestly desire to know, God will always tell us; and the manifestation of the purified human mind, which is the loss of the Christ, will become more apparent. The more we approach the understanding of Spirit and acquaint ourselves with spiritual sense, the less chance there is for us to be deceived, and the more objectionable and obvious becomes the purified human mind when it attempts to assume the prerogatives of the divine Mind.

In the Christian Science Journal for November 1, 1884 we find the following, “How can I distinguish between the immortal and the mortal thought? The thought that rests firmly on the understanding that all is Good is the immortal thought. When belief in the presence and power of evil, or the reality of sin and sickness, enters your mind, it is mortal thought.”

— from Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Precepts, by Gilbert Carpenter

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