Responsive Reading
Colossians 3:2, 4, 9, 10, 12–16
2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
13Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
16Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
The Responsive Reading is from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®.
Section 1
The Bible
Psalms 57:8
8Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
Ecclesiastes 5:7 (to :)
7For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities:
Isaiah 42:5 (to 1st ;), 8, 9
5Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out;
8I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
9Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Isaiah 26:19 Awake (to :)
19Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust:
I Corinthians 15:1 brethren, 22 as, 45, 47–51, 53
1brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
22as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
45And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
47The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
48As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
49And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
50Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
53For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesby Mary Baker Eddy
249:22
Mortals are the Adam dreamers.
476:13–15, 21
Mortals are not fallen children of God. They never had a perfect state of being, which may subsequently be regained.
Imperishable
identity
Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood. Remember that the Scriptures say of mortal man: “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”
409:20
The real man is spiritual and immortal, but the mortal and imperfect so-called “children of men” are counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid aside for the pure reality. This mortal is put off, and the new man or real man is put on, in proportion as mortals realize the Science of man and seek the true model.
277:7–9 As
As God Himself is good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be immortal.
370:2–5
To be immortal, we must forsake the mortal sense of things, turn from the lie of false belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being from the divine Mind.
Section 2
The Bible
Psalms 81:1
1Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.
Psalms 139:1, 3, 7, 17, 18
1O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
3Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
7Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
17How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
18If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
Genesis 28:10–13, 15, 16
10And Jacob went out from Beer–sheba, and went toward Haran.
11And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
12And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
13And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
15And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
16And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
Science and Health
265:5
Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, — they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, — in order that sin and mortality may be put off.
174:9–14
Rise of
thought
The footsteps of thought, rising above material standpoints, are slow, and portend a long night to the traveller; but the angels of His presence — the spiritual intuitions that tell us when “the night is far spent, the day is at hand” — are our guardians in the gloom.
589:4
Jacob. A corporeal mortal embracing duplicity, repentance, sensualism. Inspiration; the revelation of Science, in which the so-called material senses yield to the spiritual sense of Life and Love.
323:32–4
Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear, — this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony.
491:12
It is only by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator.
Section 3
The Bible
Psalms 118:14
14The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.
Joshua 14:6 the, 7, 10, 11 (to :)
6the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh–barnea.
7Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh–barnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart.
10And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.
11As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me:
Deuteronomy 34:7 Moses
7Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
Science and Health
246:10–13, 20
The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun.
Undesirable
records
Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.
244:23 (only), 25
Man in Science is neither young nor old.
Man not
evolved
He does not pass from matter to Mind, from the mortal to the immortal, from evil to good, or from good to evil. Such admissions cast us headlong into darkness and dogma. Even Shakespeare’s poetry pictures age as infancy, as helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to man the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development, power, and prestige.
247:13
Eternal
beauty
Immortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own, — the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense.
80:1–3
We have strength in proportion to our apprehension of the truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving utterance to truth.
113:23
According to the Scripture, I find that God is true, “but every [mortal] man a liar.”
211:24
Nerves
painless
If it is true that nerves have sensation, that matter has intelligence, that the material organism causes the eyes to see and the ears to hear, then, when the body is dematerialized, these faculties must be lost, for their immortality is not in Spirit; whereas the fact is that only through dematerialization and spiritualization of thought can these faculties be conceived of as immortal.
228:14–15
God-given
dominion
Mortals will some day assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God.
Section 4
The Bible
Psalms 42:8 the
8the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.
John 4:46–53 Jesus
46Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.
47When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.
48Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
49The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.
50Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.
51And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.
52Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.
53So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.
Proverbs 12:28
28In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
Science and Health
42:5, 19–23
A belief
in death
The universal belief in death is of no advantage. It cannot make Life or Truth apparent. Death will be found at length to be a mortal dream, which comes in darkness and disappears with the light.
The belief that man has existence or mind separate from God is a dying error. This error Jesus met with divine Science and proved its nothingness. Because of the wondrous glory which God bestowed on His anointed, temptation, sin, sickness, and death had no terror for Jesus.
289:14
Death but
an illusion
The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still overcomes death proves the “king of terrors” to be but a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe there is no death-process.
386:32
We shall perceive this to be true when we grow into the understanding of Life, and know that there is no death.
427:30–6
Thought will waken from its own material declaration, “I am dead,” to catch this trumpet-word of Truth, “There is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor reaction.”
Vision
opening
Life is real, and death is the illusion. A demonstration of the facts of Soul in Jesus’ way resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and immortality.
Section 5
The Bible
Isaiah 60:1 (to ;)
1Arise, shine;
Psalms 98:1 (to ;)
1O sing unto the Lord a new song;
Matthew 17:1–7
1And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
2And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
3And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
4Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
5While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
6And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
7And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
John 8:12 I am, 32, 51
12I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
32And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
51Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.
Science and Health
288:27–28
Science reveals the glorious possibilities of immortal man, forever unlimited by the mortal senses.
263:5
Immortal spiritual man alone represents the truth of creation.
471:13–20
The facts of divine Science should be admitted, — although the evidence as to these facts is not supported by evil, by matter, or by material sense, — because the evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God’s reflection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirituality of the universe is the only fact of creation.
428:6
Vision
opening
Man’s privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, — this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, “whose builder and maker is God.”
191:8–17, 24–25
The immortal
birth
As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to “where the young child was,” — even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error.
The human thought must free itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage.
The Science of being reveals man and immortality as based on Spirit.
Section 6
The Bible
John 17:1–3
1These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
2As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Ephesians 4:7 unto, 12, 13, 23 be, 24 put
7unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
12For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
23be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
I Corinthians 14:15 I will sing
15I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
Romans 6:23 the gift
23the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Science and Health
589:16
Jesus. The highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man’s immortality.
300:9
So far as the scientific statement as to man is understood, it can be proved and will bring to light the true reflection of God — the real man, or the new man (as St. Paul has it).
476:11–13
Mortals will disappear, and immortals, or the children of God, will appear as the only and eternal verities of man.
545:32–1
The mortality of man is a myth, for man is immortal.