First Church of Christ, Scientist, La Cañada Flintridge

Wednesday Meeting Readings

w211013DT
Beware the serpent
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
The Bible
  1. Gen. 3:1-5, 9-13, 23

    1Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

    2And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

    3But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

    4And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

    5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

    ... 9And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

    10And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

    11And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

    12And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

    13And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

    23Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

  2. II Kings 18:1, 3, 5 (to ;), 6, 7 (to :), 13, 17 (to 1st .), 28-30

    1Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

    ... 3And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did.

    5He trusted in the Lord God of Israel;

    ... 6For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.

    7And the Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth:

    13Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.

    17And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab–shakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem.

    ... 28Then Rab–shakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spake, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria:

    29Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand:

    30Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

  3. II Kings 19:1, 2, 5-7, 29-31, 36, 37 (to :)

    1And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

    2And he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

    ... 5So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

    6And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

    7Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

    29And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.

    30And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

    31For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

    36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

    37And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword:

  4. II Cor. 10:1 (to 1st ,)

    1Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ,

  5. II Cor. 11:1-3

    1Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.

    2For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

    3But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

  6. Rev. 12:1-5, 7-10, 12 (to 1st .)

    1And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

    2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

    3And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

    4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

    5And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

    ... 7And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

    8And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

    9And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

    10And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

    ... 12Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.


Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy

  1. SH 564:24-26, 28

    24    From Genesis to the Apocalypse, sin, sickness, and death, envy, hatred, and revenge, — all evil, — are typi-Doom of the dragonfied by a serpent, or animal subtlety. ... The serpent is perpetually close upon the heel of harmony. From the beginning 30to the end, the serpent pursues with hatred the spiritual idea. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typi-fies mortal mind, “more subtle than any beast of the 565 565:1field.” In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, this evil increases and becomes the great red dragon, swollen 3with sin, inflamed with war against spirituality, and ripe for destruction. It is full of lust and hate, loathing the brightness of divine glory.

  2. SH 563:8

    The great red dragon symbolizes a lie, — the belief 9that substance, life, and intelligence can be material. This dragon stands for the sum total of human error. The ten horns of the dragon typify the belief that mat -12ter has power of its own, and that by means of an evil mind in matter the Ten Commandments can be broken.

  3. SH 564:3

    3    As of old, evil still charges the spiritual idea with error’s own nature and methods. This malicious animal in -stinct, of which the dragon is the type, incites mortals to 6kill morally and physically even their fellow-mortals, and worse still, to charge the innocent with the crime. This last infirmity of sin will sink its perpetrator into a night 9without a star.

  4. SH 324:7

        Unless the harmony and immortality of man are be-coming more apparent, we are not gaining the true idea 9Narrow pathwayof God; and the body will reflect what gov-erns it, whether it be Truth or error, understanding or belief, Spirit or matter. Therefore 12“acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace.” Be watchful, sober, and vigilant. The way is straight and narrow, which leads to the understanding that God 15is the only Life. It is a warfare with the flesh, in which we must conquer sin, sickness, and death, either here or hereafter, — certainly before we can reach the goal 18of Spirit, or life in God.

  5. SH 266:20

        The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil, and the 21saint his own heaven by doing right. The opposite per-secutions of material sense, aiding evil with evil, would deceive the very elect.

  6. SH 554:8-12, 16 The

        Error is always error. It is no thing. Any statement 9of life, following from a misconception of life, is errone-Our conscious developmentous, because it is destitute of any knowledge of the so-called selfhood of life, destitute of 12any knowledge of its origin or existence. ... The first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the 18creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.

  7. SH 560:6-15, 22

    6 Revelation xii. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve 9stars.

        Heaven represents harmony, and divine Science inter-prets the Principle of heavenly harmony. The great 12True estimate of God’s messengermiracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of 15heaven in man.

        Abuse of the motives and religion of St. Paul hid from view the apostle’s character, which made him equal to 24Persecution harmfulhis great mission. Persecution of all who have spoken something new and better of God has not only obscured the light of the ages, but has been fatal 27to the persecutors. Why? Because it has hid from them the true idea which has been presented. To mis-understand Paul, was to be ignorant of the divine idea he 30taught. Ignorance of the divine idea betrays at once a greater ignorance of the divine Principle of the idea — igno-561561:1rance of Truth and Love. The understanding of Truth and Love, the Principle which works out the ends of eternal 3good and destroys both faith in evil and the practice of evil, leads to the discernment of the divine idea.

  8. SH 561:22-27

        The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence 24Spiritual sunlightof God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea. The Revelator symbolizes Spirit by the sun. The spiritual idea is clad with the radiance 27of spiritual Truth, and matter is put under her feet.

  9. SH 563:15

    15    The Revelator lifts the veil from this embodiment of all evil, and beholds its awful character; but he also The sting of the serpentsees the nothingness of evil and the allness of 18God. The Revelator sees that old serpent, whose name is devil or evil, holding untiring watch, that he may bite the heel of truth and seemingly impede the 21offspring of the spiritual idea, which is prolific in health, holiness, and immortality.

  10. SH 566:25-13

    Revelation xii. 7, 8. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the 27dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

        The Old Testament assigns to the angels, God’s divine 30Angelic officesmessages, different offices. Michael’s charac-teristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and 567 567:1fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering 3Love. These angels deliver us from the depths. Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through 6the understanding of God. The Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death. 9Against Love, the dragon warreth not long, for he is killed by the divine Principle. Truth and Love prevail against the dragon because the dragon cannot war with 12them. Thus endeth the conflict between the flesh and Spirit.

  11. SH 563:1-7 (to ?)

    563:1    Human sense may well marvel at discord, while, to a diviner sense, harmony is the real and discord the unreal. 3The dragon as a typeWe may well be astonished at sin, sickness, and death. We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts 6its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness?


From the Christian Science Hymnal
Hymn 99: “He that hath God his guardian made”
Hymn 29: “Breaking through the clouds of darkness”
Hymn 201: “O do not bar your mind”