First Church of Christ, Scientist, La Cañada Flintridge, California
Wednesday Meeting Readings
- Gen. 1:3-5 (to 1st .)
3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
- Gen. 3:1-5
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.
- Ex. 20:3
3Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
- Josh. 24:2, 3, 6 (to :), 11 (to :), 14, 15 choose (to ;), 15 but
2And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.
3And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.
... 6And I brought your fathers out of Egypt:
... 11And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho:
14¶ Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.
... choose you this day whom ye will serve; ... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
- Luke 4:14 (to :), 15, 17, 18 (to ;), 25-30
14¶ And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee:
... 15And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.
17And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
... 25But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
26But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
27And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
28And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
30But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
- Luke 9:38-43 (to .)
38And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child.
39And, lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him.
40And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not.
41And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither.
42And as he was yet a-coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father.
43¶ And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God.
- Eph. 5:8-11 ye, 14
ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
... 14Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
- II Tim. 3:1, 5 a, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17
1This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
... a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
... 7Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
... 10But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
11Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.
... 14But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
... 17That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
- Ps. 24:1, 9 (to 2nd ;)
1The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
... 9Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors;
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
- SH 503:26 (only, to :), 28-4
- SH 504:6-14
All questions as to the divine creation being both spiritual and material are answered in this passage, for Light preceding the sunthough solar beams are not yet included in 9the record of creation, still there is light. This light is not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas. This 12also shows that there is no place where God’s light is not seen, since Truth, Life, and Love fill immensity and are ever-present.
- SH 511:11
- SH 544:21-25
- SH 306:32
The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, 307 307:1the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter. 3The serpent’s whisperThis pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, in-sists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, “Ye shall be as gods;” that is, I will make error as real 6and eternal as Truth.
- SH 207:10-13, 15-16, 30-31
Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the 12so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit secondary.
Body is not first and Soul last, nor is evil mightier than Evident impossibilitiesgood.
Spiritual facts are not inverted; the opposite discord, which bears no resemblance to spirituality, is not real.
- SH 213:27
- SH 472:24-4 All
All reality is in God and His creation, har-monious and eternal. That which He creates is good, Unrealities that seem realand He makes all that is made. Therefore 27the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not 30true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian 473 473:1Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illu-sion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming 3to be real and identical.
- SH 280:9-11, 16, 30-4
Finite belief can never do justice to Truth in any direc-tion. Finite belief limits all things, and would compress Mind, which is infinite, beneath a skull bone.
Through this error, human belief comes to have “gods many and lords many.” Moses declared as Jehovah’s 18Belief in many godsfirst command of the Ten: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me!” But behold the zeal of belief to establish the opposite error of many 21minds. The argument of the serpent in the allegory, “Ye shall be as gods,” urges through every avenue the belief that Soul is in body, and that infinite Spirit, and Life, is 24in finite forms.
The only excuse for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit, — ignorance 281 281:1which yields only to the understanding of divine Science, the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom 3of Truth on earth and learn that Spirit is infinite and supreme.
- SH 122:1-7
The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, — 3Opposing testimonyassigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly un-derstood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false 6witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, — the actual reign of harmony on earth.
- SH 186:22-24, 29-30, 32
If we concede the same reality to discord as to harmony, discord has as lasting a claim upon 24us as has harmony.
If mortal mind knew how to be better, it 30Ignorant idolatrywould be better. ... The human mind has been an idolater from the beginning, 187 187:1having other gods and believing in more than the one Mind.
- SH 421:15-18 (to 1st .)
- SH 390:4-9
We cannot deny that Life is self-sustained, and we should never deny the everlasting harmony of Soul, sim-6Ultimate harmonyply because, to the mortal senses, there is seem-ing discord. It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and 9the right understanding of Him restores harmony.
- SH 255:1-6 As
- SH 281:14
- SH 276:12-15
- SH 355:11
Hymn 245: “O tender, loving Shepherd, we long to follow thee”
Hymn 541: “O God, my Friend and Guardian, In all my times of need”
Hymn 176: “Long hast thou stood, O church of God, Long mid the tempest's assailing”