Spirit 8-9-09 Sara Lincoln
What is the difference between ‘Spirit’ and ‘spirits’? ………..
Can you multiply Spirit and get spirits? __________
What does Spirit multiply? SH 512: 20-21
Let’s review what some faithful and courageous thinkers did as they brought to light the great difference between God and gods, Spirit and spirits. Underline their names.
About 1800 B.C., God led Abraham to the land of Canaan where he could learn more about the new idea of ‘One God,’ and how Spirit multiplies its ideas. In Canaan, Abraham found paganism, belief in spirits and matter gods, but he stayed true to God and brought up his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob to worship the One God.
About 1700 B.C., there was a famine in Canaan, and Jacob//Israel led his family, the Children of Israel, to Egypt where there was food and where his son Joseph was in charge of distributing the food. During their 400 years in Egypt, the Egyptian Pharaohs permitted the Children of Israel to worship the One God. Eventually, an unfriendly Pharaoh made the Jews to be slaves. As slaves, the Jews worked to build the pyramids.
About 1200 B.C., Moses led them out of slavery, out of Egypt, but they found the same paganism when they arrived in Canaan, The Promised Land. What pagan beliefs and practices did Moses tell the people of the One God to avoid? Deut. 18: 10, 11, 13.
A few years later, Joshua conquered the pagan Canaanites in the Promised Land.
About 700 B.C., the prophet Isaiah was warning the Jews (the Children of Israel) again about pagan practices, and urging them to hear God’s call, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” Isa. 45: 22
Over a period of 1000 years, these servants of the One God – Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and Isaiah –- warned God’s chosen people to reject and destroy pagan beliefs and practices. It seems the people just kept going back to the worship of many gods. Their beliefs in spirits and spiritualism prevented the people from finding and worshipping the one Spirit, the One God.
If any belief and practice is ‘pagan,’ it ignores God or makes other powers equal to God. Paganism sets up matter as the source and cause of everything. What would a pagan belief and practice look like in your world of today?
Could the prolonged darkness of belief in matter forever resist the brightness of God’s plan for His people? _____
About 550 B.C., the prophet Ezekiel saw visions of true God and true man. He said Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple because the Jews had stopped worshiping God, but the people would learn from this experience and return to God.
The Promised One, the Messiah, finally came and told the full truth about God and man. His message changed thought, and even changed the measurement of time. The date for every person and event before Jesus became B.C. now called BCE – Before the Common Era. Everything after Jesus became A.D, now called CE – the Common Era.
About 1800 years after Jesus, the prophet Mary Baker Eddy saw visions and published a book in 1875. It describes the continuous good the one Almighty God gives to all mankind through His ideas, including you and me and everyone. She said,
Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell whence
it cometh." By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are
30 comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the
effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling
in eternal Science. Science and Health 78: 28
Is it important to your future to honor Spirit and discard spirits? ______
Will you continue to look for and find ‘the invisible good dwelling in eternal Science’? How will you do this? How will you find something that is invisible?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Love
Love 8-2-09 Sara Lincoln
Some say, ‘love makes the world go round.’
Popular songs ask, Where is love? Is this love? Can I love?
Love is something to have and to give.
God, Love, might say, ‘You can have my love only by giving it away.’
‘I show you tender mercies so that you can show loving kindness to others.’
Or as hymn 179 says,
"Love one another, — word of revelation;
Love frees from error's thrall, — Love is liberation.
Love's way the Master trod;
He that loves shall walk with God.
Love is the royal way."
When do you use the word ‘love’? …………
What are two commandments that show the essential role of love in our relationship
to God, to others, and to ourselves? …………
Think of the other 6 synonyms for God; see Glossary of Science and Health.
They are:
When do you use the word ‘mind’? …………
Which name for God might Christ Jesus have relied on
…When he fed thousands with only a few loaves and fishes (Mark 6: 35-44)
…When he walked on the water (Mark 6: 45-51)
…When he cast out demons (Matt. 8: 28-32)
…When he healed the little girl who others said was dead (Matt. 9: 18-19, 23-26)
…When he healed a blind man (Luke 18: 35-43)
…When Jesus came out of the tomb (Matt. 28: 1-10)
Jesus did many wonderful works, but what does that have to do with you?
Christian Science reveals Jesus’ purpose, SH 38: 24-26
He mapped out ……
He unveiled …….
Why did Jesus do these things for you and me? ……….
A person could have knowledge, talent, and achievement.
Indeed, every person does have knowledge, talent, and achievement.
A person would probably feel good about having these and sharing these, but the prophet Jeremiah described something even more important: Jer. 9: 23-24
A witness is someone who
A servant is someone who
According to the prophet Isaiah, God, Love makes you a witness and a servant so that you can do what? Isa. 43: 10
As a witness and a servant, are you separate from God? SH 91: 5-7
Can you always overcome evil with good? ____
Christian Science says, “ ______ ______, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a ________ ______ ______.” SH 571: 15
What statement about Love is on the wall of our church auditorium? SH 494: 10-15
Which word is repeated twice?________ What does it mean? ………….
Love happens in thought when you…….
Love happens in deed when you ……..
Why do so many people think so often of God as ‘Love’ and pray to God as ‘Love’?
Some say, ‘love makes the world go round.’
Popular songs ask, Where is love? Is this love? Can I love?
Love is something to have and to give.
God, Love, might say, ‘You can have my love only by giving it away.’
‘I show you tender mercies so that you can show loving kindness to others.’
Or as hymn 179 says,
"Love one another, — word of revelation;
Love frees from error's thrall, — Love is liberation.
Love's way the Master trod;
He that loves shall walk with God.
Love is the royal way."
When do you use the word ‘love’? …………
What are two commandments that show the essential role of love in our relationship
to God, to others, and to ourselves? …………
Think of the other 6 synonyms for God; see Glossary of Science and Health.
They are:
When do you use the word ‘mind’? …………
Which name for God might Christ Jesus have relied on
…When he fed thousands with only a few loaves and fishes (Mark 6: 35-44)
…When he walked on the water (Mark 6: 45-51)
…When he cast out demons (Matt. 8: 28-32)
…When he healed the little girl who others said was dead (Matt. 9: 18-19, 23-26)
…When he healed a blind man (Luke 18: 35-43)
…When Jesus came out of the tomb (Matt. 28: 1-10)
Jesus did many wonderful works, but what does that have to do with you?
Christian Science reveals Jesus’ purpose, SH 38: 24-26
He mapped out ……
He unveiled …….
Why did Jesus do these things for you and me? ……….
A person could have knowledge, talent, and achievement.
Indeed, every person does have knowledge, talent, and achievement.
A person would probably feel good about having these and sharing these, but the prophet Jeremiah described something even more important: Jer. 9: 23-24
A witness is someone who
A servant is someone who
According to the prophet Isaiah, God, Love makes you a witness and a servant so that you can do what? Isa. 43: 10
As a witness and a servant, are you separate from God? SH 91: 5-7
Can you always overcome evil with good? ____
Christian Science says, “ ______ ______, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a ________ ______ ______.” SH 571: 15
What statement about Love is on the wall of our church auditorium? SH 494: 10-15
Which word is repeated twice?________ What does it mean? ………….
Love happens in thought when you…….
Love happens in deed when you ……..
Why do so many people think so often of God as ‘Love’ and pray to God as ‘Love’?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Truth
Truth 7-26-09 Sara Lincoln
“To thine own self be true then thou canst not be false to any man.” This is a famous quotation from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Put this quotation in your own words and tell us what it means.
If it might get you in trouble, should you ‘tell the truth’ anyway? ____ Why? ____
Did this ever happen to you? ____
‘Lying’ and ‘truth telling’…..are there a couple of lines in the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus deals with these issues? _____
The ‘human mind’ sometimes does not know for sure what is true and what is untrue.
The Psalmist teaches us a solution. Ps. 25: 4-6, 10; 85: 10-13; 145: 18.
Another famous quotation is this one, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8: 32. Who said this? ____
Does it mean that in the future you ‘shall know’ and ‘shall be free’? _____ It means……
As we know, Jesus went about Galilee, teaching and preaching and healing. Matt. 4: 23
What did this have to do with ‘Truth’? …..
Mary Baker Eddy also gives us an answer: SH 418: 20
What is the difference between ‘a truthful argument’ and ‘the spirit of Truth’? ……
One time, Jesus walked on the water in order to join his disciples who were in a boat.
It frightened the disciples to see this. How did Jesus respond? He said _____ Matt. 14: 25-32
Peter could have walked on the water too if……………
Christian Science says we should “walk over the waves of error.” SH 455: 8-10.
What does this mean and how are we supposed to do this?
Many people followed Jesus. They asked how they also could “work the works of God.”
What did Jesus say they needed to do? John 6: 3, 28-29.
Jesus looked on the heart and knew the motives of every man. He knew that some followers did not ‘believe on him whom God had sent’ and when he said this, many who were following Jesus with false motives turned and went away. What would be a false motive for following Jesus? ………John 6: 64, 66
Why did 12 of the disciples stay with Jesus? John 6: 67-68 and John 14: 6 I am
Science and Health tells what Truth destroys and what happens next: SH 288: 31-2
“ ________ demonstrated is eternal ______.”
After Jesus ascended, his faithful apostles (disciples) continued his work of teaching and healing. The high priest in the Temple was furious and put them in prison. Why do you think the high priest objected? ……..Can the light and joy of Truth be put away in a dark prison? ____
What happened? …… Acts 5: 19-21.
Jesus had demonstrated the Christly qualities that are natural to man, for example, courage, patience, compassion, persistence, and insight. Pick 3 qualities that strengthened the apostles as they continued teaching about Jesus Christ.
The high priest tried again to silence Peter and the other apostles. Acts 5: 28-29
There was a wise lawyer in the council, Gamaliel, who argued that the priests should release the apostles. What reasons did he give? ……….Acts 5: 38-40, 42
What is a ‘sermon’? ………
In other Christian churches, a minister or pastor ‘preaches the sermon’ on Sunday. Is there a sermon in the Christian Science church? ____ What is it and who preaches it? __
Do we also have a sermon here in Sunday School? _____
What very important thing does Mary Baker Eddy say about sermons? SH 201: 1-3
She also says that ‘clergymen’ (ministers, pastors) “should uplift the standard of Truth. They should so raise their hearers _________, that their listeners will love to grapple with a _____, ______ ______ and broaden ______ _________.” SH 235: 28-31
Are we doing the same thing in Sunday School that adults are doing in church? ____
What ‘new idea’ or ‘broader concept’ did you receive today? ________________
“To thine own self be true then thou canst not be false to any man.” This is a famous quotation from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Put this quotation in your own words and tell us what it means.
If it might get you in trouble, should you ‘tell the truth’ anyway? ____ Why? ____
Did this ever happen to you? ____
‘Lying’ and ‘truth telling’…..are there a couple of lines in the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus deals with these issues? _____
The ‘human mind’ sometimes does not know for sure what is true and what is untrue.
The Psalmist teaches us a solution. Ps. 25: 4-6, 10; 85: 10-13; 145: 18.
Another famous quotation is this one, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8: 32. Who said this? ____
Does it mean that in the future you ‘shall know’ and ‘shall be free’? _____ It means……
As we know, Jesus went about Galilee, teaching and preaching and healing. Matt. 4: 23
What did this have to do with ‘Truth’? …..
Mary Baker Eddy also gives us an answer: SH 418: 20
What is the difference between ‘a truthful argument’ and ‘the spirit of Truth’? ……
One time, Jesus walked on the water in order to join his disciples who were in a boat.
It frightened the disciples to see this. How did Jesus respond? He said _____ Matt. 14: 25-32
Peter could have walked on the water too if……………
Christian Science says we should “walk over the waves of error.” SH 455: 8-10.
What does this mean and how are we supposed to do this?
Many people followed Jesus. They asked how they also could “work the works of God.”
What did Jesus say they needed to do? John 6: 3, 28-29.
Jesus looked on the heart and knew the motives of every man. He knew that some followers did not ‘believe on him whom God had sent’ and when he said this, many who were following Jesus with false motives turned and went away. What would be a false motive for following Jesus? ………John 6: 64, 66
Why did 12 of the disciples stay with Jesus? John 6: 67-68 and John 14: 6 I am
Science and Health tells what Truth destroys and what happens next: SH 288: 31-2
“ ________ demonstrated is eternal ______.”
After Jesus ascended, his faithful apostles (disciples) continued his work of teaching and healing. The high priest in the Temple was furious and put them in prison. Why do you think the high priest objected? ……..Can the light and joy of Truth be put away in a dark prison? ____
What happened? …… Acts 5: 19-21.
Jesus had demonstrated the Christly qualities that are natural to man, for example, courage, patience, compassion, persistence, and insight. Pick 3 qualities that strengthened the apostles as they continued teaching about Jesus Christ.
The high priest tried again to silence Peter and the other apostles. Acts 5: 28-29
There was a wise lawyer in the council, Gamaliel, who argued that the priests should release the apostles. What reasons did he give? ……….Acts 5: 38-40, 42
What is a ‘sermon’? ………
In other Christian churches, a minister or pastor ‘preaches the sermon’ on Sunday. Is there a sermon in the Christian Science church? ____ What is it and who preaches it? __
Do we also have a sermon here in Sunday School? _____
What very important thing does Mary Baker Eddy say about sermons? SH 201: 1-3
She also says that ‘clergymen’ (ministers, pastors) “should uplift the standard of Truth. They should so raise their hearers _________, that their listeners will love to grapple with a _____, ______ ______ and broaden ______ _________.” SH 235: 28-31
Are we doing the same thing in Sunday School that adults are doing in church? ____
What ‘new idea’ or ‘broader concept’ did you receive today? ________________
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Life
Life 7-19-09 Sara Lincoln
Can you live and not love God ‘with all your heart and soul’? ____ SH 328: 4-5
Moses tells you in Deut. 30: 10 that “the Lord thy God” will give you everything and make you successful if ……….
and if…….
The fact about life//Life is that it is su_________, Sp________, and in____________.
The belief or theory about life//Life is that it is m__________. SH 330: 11-12 & 283: 13-15
What are other examples of ‘fact’ and ‘belief // theory’’?
Fact: pollution has a very negative effect on the earth.
Belief: pollution doesn’t matter.
Fact: Jesus came into the world to show us how to be the Christ-man that God made.
Belief: Jesus was a special case and we cannot actually follow his command that we
heal the sick and cast out demons.
Fact: you are capable of unlimited good, and love.
Belief: you are a limited mortal, and you can’t be expected to love everyone.
I choose spirituality and goodness as the substance of life. The ‘substance’ of something is what it is made of. For example, what is the substance of this book?
I choose to know that my life is made of spirituality and goodness, but what shall I think and do about matter and evil? SH 448: 5-9
Evil must be con_______________ and de_______________ (line 7)
You are by nature unlimited, spiritual, and good. Do you have to learn this? ______
Sometimes you figure things out for yourself, but you also learn through instruction (teaching) from …..
A ‘proverb’ is a wise saying. The Book of Proverbs is the oldest book in the Old Testament. Some of these wise sayings & instructions appeared in writing c. 1020 B.C.
What does Proverbs tell us about ‘instruction’? Prov. 6: 23; Prov. 4: 13-14
When you are trying to figure something out, understand it, you are using r_________. What does Mary Baker Eddy say about this mental faculty or ability? SH 327: 29
Through r________ we learn that sp__________ sense is stronger than hu_______ sense.
Many Christians say and love this verse from John: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3: 16
When do all of us believers experience ‘everlasting life’? ____
What is the First Commandment?
How does it break tbe First Commandment to believe that Life is mortal? SH 19: 29-1
Paul says “your body is the ___________ of the Holy Ghost…” I Cor. 6: 19.
Does that mean that God dwells in your material body/?___ We are Creation, living with our Creator. What we believe about life is what we believe about God.
Luke tells us, “___ _____ we live, and move, and have our being.” Acts 17: 24, 25, 28
Paul said, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God…” SH 325: 20
God does not live in a material body but you are the temple of the Holy Ghost, so where in you does the Holy Ghost (Spirit, Life) live? ________
A ‘metaphysician’ reasons meta (above) physics (matter).
Do you reason or think like a metaphysician all the time or some of the time? _____
Do you want to be the kind of metaphysician who helps and blesses others? _____
How do you become a better metaphysician? Science and Health instructs us (366: 3)
Cast ‘moral evils’ out of yourself then you can cast ‘physical evils’ out of others.
What are ‘moral evils’? Can you add to these examples: dishonesty, indifference, …..…
Would it be a moral evil to refuse God’s love and assistance? ______
The metaphysician, the Christian Scientist, casts out ‘moral evils’ and takes in // holds on to ‘moral strengths.’ See SH 115: 26. Which one would you like to know more about?
As you let Christian Science instruct you and guide your reasoning, you become a better metaphysician who is willing to bring out the proof that ‘Life is continuous and harmonious.’ SH 157: 28
Christ is the Great Physician, SH 442: 18. Christ Jesus reasoned through Mind and Spirit, Life and Love, and did not try to find reasons why ‘man’ appeared to be ‘matter.’ He kept his thinking ‘above’ the physical so he was also the Great Metaphysician because ‘meta’ means ‘above.’
I want to practice Christian Science and be a better metaphysician. Do you? ______
John tells of a time when Jesus was tired and thirsty and he asked a woman at a well for a drink. She was surprised because Jews (like Jesus) and Samaritans (like this woman) were enemies. Is water really important to life? ____ Being a metaphysician, Jesus lifted the discussion to a higher level. Jesus wanted a drink of water, but he was even more interested in water as a symbol of life. He said, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4: 13-14
What kind of ‘water’ was Jesus talking about? _________
What kind of ‘water’ do you need for a healthy and happy life? _________________
I think the Psalmist understood. She said, “… with ____ is the __________ ___ ______: Ps. 36: 9
Can you live and not love God ‘with all your heart and soul’? ____ SH 328: 4-5
Moses tells you in Deut. 30: 10 that “the Lord thy God” will give you everything and make you successful if ……….
and if…….
The fact about life//Life is that it is su_________, Sp________, and in____________.
The belief or theory about life//Life is that it is m__________. SH 330: 11-12 & 283: 13-15
What are other examples of ‘fact’ and ‘belief // theory’’?
Fact: pollution has a very negative effect on the earth.
Belief: pollution doesn’t matter.
Fact: Jesus came into the world to show us how to be the Christ-man that God made.
Belief: Jesus was a special case and we cannot actually follow his command that we
heal the sick and cast out demons.
Fact: you are capable of unlimited good, and love.
Belief: you are a limited mortal, and you can’t be expected to love everyone.
I choose spirituality and goodness as the substance of life. The ‘substance’ of something is what it is made of. For example, what is the substance of this book?
I choose to know that my life is made of spirituality and goodness, but what shall I think and do about matter and evil? SH 448: 5-9
Evil must be con_______________ and de_______________ (line 7)
You are by nature unlimited, spiritual, and good. Do you have to learn this? ______
Sometimes you figure things out for yourself, but you also learn through instruction (teaching) from …..
A ‘proverb’ is a wise saying. The Book of Proverbs is the oldest book in the Old Testament. Some of these wise sayings & instructions appeared in writing c. 1020 B.C.
What does Proverbs tell us about ‘instruction’? Prov. 6: 23; Prov. 4: 13-14
When you are trying to figure something out, understand it, you are using r_________. What does Mary Baker Eddy say about this mental faculty or ability? SH 327: 29
Through r________ we learn that sp__________ sense is stronger than hu_______ sense.
Many Christians say and love this verse from John: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3: 16
When do all of us believers experience ‘everlasting life’? ____
What is the First Commandment?
How does it break tbe First Commandment to believe that Life is mortal? SH 19: 29-1
Paul says “your body is the ___________ of the Holy Ghost…” I Cor. 6: 19.
Does that mean that God dwells in your material body/?___ We are Creation, living with our Creator. What we believe about life is what we believe about God.
Luke tells us, “___ _____ we live, and move, and have our being.” Acts 17: 24, 25, 28
Paul said, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God…” SH 325: 20
God does not live in a material body but you are the temple of the Holy Ghost, so where in you does the Holy Ghost (Spirit, Life) live? ________
A ‘metaphysician’ reasons meta (above) physics (matter).
Do you reason or think like a metaphysician all the time or some of the time? _____
Do you want to be the kind of metaphysician who helps and blesses others? _____
How do you become a better metaphysician? Science and Health instructs us (366: 3)
Cast ‘moral evils’ out of yourself then you can cast ‘physical evils’ out of others.
What are ‘moral evils’? Can you add to these examples: dishonesty, indifference, …..…
Would it be a moral evil to refuse God’s love and assistance? ______
The metaphysician, the Christian Scientist, casts out ‘moral evils’ and takes in // holds on to ‘moral strengths.’ See SH 115: 26. Which one would you like to know more about?
As you let Christian Science instruct you and guide your reasoning, you become a better metaphysician who is willing to bring out the proof that ‘Life is continuous and harmonious.’ SH 157: 28
Christ is the Great Physician, SH 442: 18. Christ Jesus reasoned through Mind and Spirit, Life and Love, and did not try to find reasons why ‘man’ appeared to be ‘matter.’ He kept his thinking ‘above’ the physical so he was also the Great Metaphysician because ‘meta’ means ‘above.’
I want to practice Christian Science and be a better metaphysician. Do you? ______
John tells of a time when Jesus was tired and thirsty and he asked a woman at a well for a drink. She was surprised because Jews (like Jesus) and Samaritans (like this woman) were enemies. Is water really important to life? ____ Being a metaphysician, Jesus lifted the discussion to a higher level. Jesus wanted a drink of water, but he was even more interested in water as a symbol of life. He said, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4: 13-14
What kind of ‘water’ was Jesus talking about? _________
What kind of ‘water’ do you need for a healthy and happy life? _________________
I think the Psalmist understood. She said, “… with ____ is the __________ ___ ______: Ps. 36: 9
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