Responsive Reading: Psalm 107 : 8, 9 • Psalm 19 : 7-11

8.     Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

9.     For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

7.     The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

8.     The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

9.     The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

10.     More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

11.     Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.

1. Isaiah 55 : 1-3

1     Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

2     Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

3     Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

2. Jeremiah 31 : 14

14     And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord.

3. Luke 4 : 1 (to 1st ,), 33-37

1     And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan,

33     And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice,

34     Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.

35     And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.

36     And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.

37     And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.

4. Luke 12 : 1 (to 3rd ,), 13 (one)-24, 28-31

1     In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another,

13     …one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.

14     And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?

15     And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

16     And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

17     And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

18     And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

19     And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

20     But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

21     So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

22     And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.

23     The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.

24     Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?

28     If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

29     And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.

30     For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.

31     But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

5. Matthew 10 : 28

28     And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

6. Matthew 16 : 24-26

24     Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

25     For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

26     For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

7. John 6 : 31-33, 38, 40

31     Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

32     Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

33     For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

38     For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

40     And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

8. II Corinthians 5 : 1, 6-8

1     For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

6     Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

7     (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

8     We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

9. I Thessalonians 5 : 23 (and I)

23     …and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. 477 : 22-29

Soul is the substance, Life, and intelligence of man, which is individualized, but not in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to Spirit.

Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake "the smile of the Great Spirit."

2. 209 : 5-9

Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind. The material and mortal body or mind is not the man.

3. 309 : 24-32

The Science of being shows it to be impossible for infinite Spirit or Soul to be in a finite body or for man to have an intelligence separate from his Maker. It is a self-evident error to suppose that there can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life, when such so-called life always ends in death. Life is never for a moment extinct. Therefore it is never structural nor organic, and is never absorbed nor limited by its own formations.

4. 478 : 3-8

What evidence of Soul or of immortality have you within mortality? Even according to the teachings of natural science, man has never beheld Spirit or Soul leaving a body or entering it. What basis is there for the theory of indwelling spirit, except the claim of mortal belief?

5. 372 : 2-13

The mortal body is only an erroneous mortal belief of mind in matter. What you call matter was originally error in solution, elementary mortal mind, — likened by Milton to "chaos and old night." One theory about this mortal mind is, that its sensations can reproduce man, can form blood, flesh, and bones. The Science of being, in which all is divine Mind, or God and His idea, would be clearer in this age, but for the belief that matter is the medium of man, or that man can enter his own embodied thought, bind himself with his own beliefs, and then call his bonds material and name them divine law.

6. 60 : 29-3

Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real enjoyment.

7. 232 : 19-25

Jesus never taught that drugs, food, air, and exercise could make a man healthy, or that they could destroy human life; nor did he illustrate these errors by his practice. He referred man's harmony to Mind, not to matter, and never tried to make of none effect the sentence of God, which sealed God's condemnation of sin, sickness, and death.

8. 388 : 12-24

Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nutriment of life, and there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction, — that food has power to destroy Life, God, through a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, constituting a "kingdom divided against itself," which is "brought to desolation." If food was prepared by Jesus for his disciples, it cannot destroy life.

The fact is, food does not affect the absolute Life of man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that God is our Life.

9. 220 : 22-32

A clergyman once adopted a diet of bread and water to increase his spirituality. Finding his health failing, he gave up his abstinence, and advised others never to try dietetics for growth in grace.

The belief that either fasting or feasting makes men better morally or physically is one of the fruits of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," concerning which God said, "Thou shalt not eat of it." Mortal mind forms all conditions of the mortal body, and controls the stomach, bones, lungs, heart, blood, etc., as directly as the volition or will moves the hand.

10. 530 : 5-12

In divine Science, man is sustained by God, the divine Principle of being. The earth, at God's command, brings forth food for man's use. Knowing this, Jesus once said, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink," — presuming not on the prerogative of his creator, but recognizing God, the Father and Mother of all, as able to feed and clothe man as He doth the lilies.

11. 382 : 5-8

If half the attention given to hygiene were given to the study of Christian Science and to the spiritualization of thought, this alone would usher in the millennium.

12. 222 : 31-6

We must destroy the false belief that life and intelligence are in matter, and plant ourselves upon what is pure and perfect. Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit.

13. 427 : 2-12

Life is the law of Soul, even the law of the spirit of Truth, and Soul is never without its representative. Man's individual being can no more die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal. If man believes in death now, he must disbelieve in it when learning that there is no reality in death, since the truth of being is deathless. The belief that existence is contingent on matter must be met and mastered by Science, before Life can be understood and harmony obtained.

14. 9 : 17-24

Dost thou "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind"? This command includes much, even the surrender of all merely material sensation, affection, and worship. This is the El Dorado of Christianity. It involves the Science of Life, and recognizes only the divine control of Spirit, in which Soul is our master, and material sense and human will have no place.