Sunday, July 19th, 2020 Roundtable

Oh, my God, I offer as a consecrated gift upon Thine altar, a heart dedicated to Thy service, lips speaking only words of charity, love, and truth, thoughts striving to be only the true thoughts of the Mind of God. Help me to endure unto the end, strong in the faith, powerful in the truth, all the influence that I can bring to bear, all the force of tongue or pen that is mine, I offer in Thy service. May heaven help, consecrate, and accept.

— Mrs. Eddy’s Prayer, given at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, found in both the April 1885 Christian Science Journal and in Mary Baker Eddy’s Six Days of Revelation, page 171

443 — WATCH lest you forget that in Science there is nothing in your past that cannot be turned into a constructive step in your spiritual growth, on the basis that all things work together for good to them that love God. Hence we should never permit ourselves to regret anything in the past.

Once Mrs. Eddy wrote, “God’s child can never make a mistake, can never lose an opportunity, can never cause a regret; his life is bright with abundant goodness, hope, promise. Love has a plan and a purpose for each and everyone to fulfill, and none can escape it or fail to perform the will of God.”

— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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Golden Text — “Love the Lord thy God, obey his voice, cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days.” — Deuteronomy 30 : 20

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God requireth that which is past.

— Ecclesiastes 3: 15 from the King James Bible

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O, sometimes gleams upon our sight,
Through present wrong, th’ eternal right;
And step by step, since time began,
We see the steady gain of man.

For all of good the past hath had
Remains to make our own time glad,
Our common, daily life divine,
And every land a Palestine.

Through the harsh noises of our day,
A low sweet prelude finds its way;
Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear
A light is breaking, calm and clear.

Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
For olden time and holier shore:
God’s love and blessing, then and there,
Are now and here and everywhere.

— Hymn 238 from the Christian Science Hymnal

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Teaching Testimony — Leaving the Past by Louise Knight Wheatley

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First thing in the morning, “before your feet hit the floor”:

God is Mind. God is my mind. God is the only pure and perfect Mind.

— from the Roundtable

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Make each day count.

— from the Roundtable

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How to hear God’s voice:
Spend quiet time with Him.
Listen with your spiritual sense. (This is often experienced as a feeling rather than a specific thought.)
Living day by day God’s plans and being obedient to His laws.

— from the Roundtable

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Forum post — Quietness of heart. by Lynda from NJ

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They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house; and you shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures.

— Psalm 36: 8 from the Responsive Reading portion of this week’s Lesson

There is a river, the streams whereof shall be made glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

— Psalm 46:4 from the King James Bible

There is a river of these pleasures always full, always fresh, always flowing. There is enough for all, enough for each, enough for evermore, Psalm 46:4

— from Benson Commentary

You should never think lack, or feel unworthy, or covet – go to the “river of Life,” it is available to all.

— from the Roundtable

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Forum post — “Man is not a pendulum” by Joanne from FL

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Forum post — “Listen and obey with all your heart.” by Betty from CA

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Forum post — “This Principle makes whole….” by Joanne from FL

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Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.

— Psalm 105: 15 from the King James Bible

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For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

— Acts 20: 29-31 from the King James Bible

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Mercy: That benevolence, mildness or tenderness of heart which disposes a person to overlook injuries, or to treat an offender better than he deserves; in this sense, there is perhaps no word in our language precisely synonymous with mercy, That which comes nearest to it is grace. It implies benevolence, tenderness, mildness, pity or compassion, and clemency, but exercised only towards offenders. Mercy is a distinguishing attribute of the Supreme Being.

— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary

Teaching Testimony — Find your happiness. by Mary Beth Singleterry

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It was at least ten years after Abraham left his father’s house before he found Melchizedek, the Christ, or the perfect concept of God and man, that delivered him from the hand of all his enemies. He was assailed by temptation and fear, by loss, and besieged by enemies. At Bethel he separated from his beloved Lot, that Lot might have the richest of the pasture lands.

But during all these years, while gaining an understanding, Abraham was proving his faith in the only living and true God. Abraham knew he was a witness to the stupendous truth which was destined ultimately to conquer every false system of worship, and form the basis of one demonstrable religion, that God is One and All.

Abraham knew that in order to find the city that hath foundations, which is the true understanding of God, he could not be wanting in patience and obedience and fidelity. He knew he could not gain this understanding by fleeing when evil pursued him. He knew that evil, when undestroyed, would pursue him, because God or Truth does not let evil rest until it is entirely destroyed. A false peace is no peace.

Abraham made mighty demonstrations through his faith in God, and through his fidelity to his vision that God is One.

Many of us, when wrestling with the problems of this day, receive much comfort and courage from the narrative where the Assyrian armies swooped down upon Abraham and his tribes, and were shouting their cries of victory, when Melchizedek, the Prince and Priest of the Most High, appeared in the distance with the supposed army.

The Assyrian armies, when they beheld the oncoming host of Melchizedek, which appeared to them to be as numerous as the sand of the desert with their shields and spears glistening in the sun, turned back their armies in such haste and confusion as to fall on their own spears, and were thus self-destroyed.

The enemies of Abraham fled when the host of Melchizedek burst upon their sight; but Melchizedek came not with arms nor with great numbers, just Melchizedek and a few attendants; but Abraham’s enemies, mortal mind as always, saw its own concept and fears personified, and fled before what was, in reality, the vision of Omnipotence.

Likewise, we learn slowly but surely that our enemies are but our own concepts, human thoughts and fears that are personified. These seeming enemies are turned back and self-destroyed, when once Melchizedek, the Prince and Priest of the Most High, the understanding that is absolute Truth, becomes our consciousness and demonstrates the everpresent fact that God, Truth, is supreme power.

Melchizedek

What a grand character was Melchizedek. There is some question about who Melchizedek was humanly, but we know the reality of the Christ was all there was of him. He was without human father or mother, without beginning or end of days. In the days of Abraham, there dwelt on the earth sacred and mysterious kings of righteousness and peace, and the greatest of these was Melchizedek. He was a spiritually minded servant of the One God; he was a great administrator of justice, and such as he believed God, Himself, would be.

Melchizedek subdued Egypt and overthrew their idolatry, and did it without bloodshed or strife. How was this done? Through his understanding of God as One. He knew that materiality, personified evil, has no power to interfere or defeat that which is spiritual fact. Melchizedek was the type of that greater Priest who was to come as a sinful world’s Messiah. I often think of those who dwell on earth today, who move among us as a divine afflatus, invisible to us, because our eyes are holden.

The great Prince and Priest of the Most High alone can lead us to that city which hath foundations; and we shall find that city when we seek the spiritual alone; when we abandon the belief that things are matter; when we cease to fear that evil has presence and power; when the belief in evil ceases to contest our faith in God as All. Our Most High Priest is always at hand. Our Redeemer liveth, and He stands upon the earth today as our Great Deliverer.

— from “The Scriptures” in Addresses by Martha Wilcox, page 443-445

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Abide in the 91st psalm, the Christ consciousness.

— Plainfield Roundtable

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What is the true meaning of Shalom?

“Shalom” is taken from the root word shalam, which means, “to be safe in mind, body, or estate.” It speaks of completeness, fullness, or a type of wholeness that encourages you to give back — to generously re-pay something in some way.

True biblical shalom refers to an inward sense of completeness or wholeness.

Although it can describe the absence of war, a majority of biblical references refer to an inner completeness and tranquility.

Hebrew Word Studies, Teachings / by Doug Hershey

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The Shalom of the Shunamite

In 2 Kings 4:18-31, the Shunamite woman’s disciplined response to a crisis is a timeless lesson on how to substitute God-Mindedness for human-mindedness. Summoning strength that only God can give, she fiercely silenced the testimony of the lying senses and claimed her child’s well-being not in the hereafter but in the here and now. When asked why she was hastening to meet with Elisha the prophet, she divulged no details except to speak a single word (the original Hebrew), “Shalom”. Peace.

Note the italics in the King James version (signifying words not found in the original text but added to the English translation): “It shall be well. “It is well.”

Nothing more than … “Shalom”? To human mind, it was a lie, a Pollyanna’s wishful thinking. But to Spirit-mind, the Shunamite’s two-syllable testimony was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“And the God of peace [the God of Shalom] shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20). The God of our Shalom is an ever-present, omnipresent help in trouble: “He is our peace” (Eph. 2:14, emphasis added).

Insisting on “Shalom”, the Shunamite was able, with one word, to counterbalance the apparent heaviness of the crisis confronting her, overcoming all belief in its weightiness, and understanding instead its utter weightlessness and nothingness.

So today, with churches burning, edicts from governors restricting religious gatherings as monuments of spiritual leaders are toppled by enemies of civilization and mockers of God Himself, we remember the woman in the wilderness with her child, Christian Science — her decades of defying the illusory supremacy of materiality, as did the Shunamite — deflating the puffed-up significance of the “great red dragon” at her heels by magnifying the Lord, the Only-ness and Allness of the Infinite that taketh away the sins of the world.

— Forum post by Parthens

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Final Readings