First Church of Christ, Scientist, La Cañada Flintridge
Wednesday Meeting Readings
- Hab. 2:4 the
4the just shall live by his faith.
- Luke 17:5, 6
5And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
6And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
- Matt. 13:31-35
31¶ Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
32Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
33¶ Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
34All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
35That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
- Philem. 1:1-6
1Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow-labourer,
2And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house:
3Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers,
5Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints;
6That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
- Heb. 1:1-3
1God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
- Heb. 10:9 (to 1st .), 10, 15, 16, 23, 24, 38, 39
9Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
... 10By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
... 15Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,
16This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
... 23Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
24And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
... 38Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
39But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
- Heb. 11:1-3, 5, 6, 8-11
1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
... 5By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
... 8By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
11Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
- Heb. 12:1, 2
1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
- Rev. 14:2 (to 1st :), 3 (to 1st ,), 5-7, 12
2And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder:
... 3And they sung as it were a new song before the throne,
... 5And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
6And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
7Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
... 12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
- SH 209:31
Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to un-derstand God. It shows the superiority of faith by works 210 210:1over faith in words. Its ideas are expressed only in “new tongues;” and these are interpreted by the translation of 3the spiritual original into the language which human thought can comprehend.
- SH 575:13-16 Spiritual
- SH 226:14-2
God has built a higher platform of human rights, and 15He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not Cramping systemsmade through code or creed, but in demonstra-tion of “on earth peace, good-will toward men.” 18Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine Science rends asunder these fetters, and man’s birthright 21of sole allegiance to his Maker asserts itself.
I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servi-tude to an unreal master in the belief that the body gov-24erned them, rather than Mind.
The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of 27House of bondagetheir own beliefs and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of yore, hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw be-30fore me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilder-ness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land 227 227:1of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged.
- SH 241:23-24
- SH 297:20-4
Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is 21a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual Faith higher than beliefevidence, contradicting the testimony of mate-rial sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the 24ever-present, is becoming understood. Human thoughts have their degrees of comparison. Some thoughts are better than others. A belief in Truth is better than a 27belief in error, but no mortal testimony is founded on the divine rock. Mortal testimony can be shaken. Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual under-30standing, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine.
A mortal belief fulfils its own conditions. Sickness, 298 298:1sin, and death are the vague realities of human conclu-sions. Life, Truth, and Love are the realities of divine 3Science. They dawn in faith and glow full-orbed in spiritual understanding.
- SH 387:27-4
27 The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed Christian historyon man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent 30Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering.
388388:1 The Christian martyrs were prophets of Christian Science. Through the uplifting and consecrating power 3of divine Truth, they obtained a victory over the corpo-real senses, a victory which Science alone can explain.
- SH 117:29-25
Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the 30Leaven of TruthPharisees and of the Sadducees, which he de-fined as human doctrines. His parable of the “leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures 118 118:1of meal, till the whole was leavened,” impels the infer-ence that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ 3and its spiritual interpretation, — an inference far above the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.
6 Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy, foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visi-9ble world?
Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally 12glorified in man’s spiritual freedom.
In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include spirit-15The divine and human contrastedual laws emanating from the invisible and in-finite power and grace. The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by 18a perverse material sense of law, are metaphysically pre-sented as three measures of meal, — that is, three modes of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of thought, dust 21is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and modes of material motion are honored with the name of laws. This continues until the leaven of Spirit changes 24the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.
- SH 343:14, 25-29
Jesus strips all disguise from error, when his teachings 15are fully understood. By parable and argument he ex-Proof from miraclesplains the impossibility of good producing evil; and he also scientifically demonstrates this great 18fact, proving by what are wrongly called miracles, that sin, sickness, and death are beliefs — illusive errors — which he could and did destroy.
Anciently those apostles who were Jesus’ students, as well as Paul who was not one of his students, healed 27Example of the disciplesthe sick and reformed the sinner by their religion. Hence the mistake which allows words, rather than works, to follow such examples!
- SH 539:27-1
27 The divine origin of Jesus gave him more than human power to expound the facts of creation, and demonstrate Scientific offspringthe one Mind which makes and governs man 30and the universe. The Science of creation, so conspicuous in the birth of Jesus, inspired his wisest and least-understood sayings, and was the basis of his 540 540:1marvellous demonstrations.
- SH 23:17-31
Faith, 18advanced to spiritual understanding, is the evidence gained from Spirit, which rebukes sin of every kind and estab-lishes the claims of God.
21 In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English, faith and the words corresponding thereto have these two defini-Self-reliance and confidencetions, trustfulness and trustworthiness. One 24kind of faith trusts one’s welfare to others. Another kind of faith understands divine Love and how to work out one’s “own salvation, with fear and trem-27bling.” “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!” expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas the injunction, “Believe . . . and thou shalt be saved!” 30demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes spir-itual understanding and confides all to God.
From the Christian Science Hymnal
Hymn 104: “...Our faith secure upon the rock of Christ”
Hymn 510: “...And as on wings of faith we soar and worship”
Hymn 274: “...Faith that mountains can remove”
