Responsive Reading: Genesis 5 : 1, 2, 18, 22-24  •  Psalm 37 : 37  •  Job 11 : 17

1.     This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

2.     Male and female created he them; and blessed them.

18.     And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch.

22.     And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

23.     And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

24.     And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

37.     Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

17.     And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning.

1. Psalm 92 : 1, 2, 10 (my), 12-14

1     It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High:

2     To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,

10     …my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

12     The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

13     Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

14     They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;

2. Psalm 139 : 1-4, 13-18

1     O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

2     Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

3     Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

4     For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

13     For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.

14     I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

15     My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

16     Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

17     How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

18     If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

3. Hebrews 7 : 1 (this)-4, 15, 16

1     …this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;

2     To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace;

3     Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.

4     Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils.

15     And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest,

16     Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.

4. John 9 : 1-7

1     And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2     And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

3     Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

4     I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

5     As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

6     When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

7     And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

5. Mark 7 : 31-35

31     And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

32     And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.

33     And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;

34     And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

35     And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.

6. Luke 8 : 41, 42 (to 1st .), 49-55

41     And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would come into his house:

42     For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying.

49     While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master.

50     But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.

51     And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden.

52     And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth.

53     And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.

54     And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise.

55     And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat.

7. I Corinthians 15 : 51, 53, 58

51     Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

53     For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

58     Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

1. 81 : 17-18

Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science cannot help being immortal.

2. 76 : 18 (Suffering)-31

Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. When divine Science is universally understood, they will have no power over man, for man is immortal and lives by divine authority.

The sinless joy, — the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness without a single bodily pleasure or pain, — constitutes the only veritable, indestructible man, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence is scientific and intact, — a perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Christ in divine Science. Death can never hasten this state of existence, for death must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears.

3. 280 : 1-8

In the infinitude of Mind, matter must be unknown. Symbols and elements of discord and decay are not products of the infinite, perfect, and eternal All. From Love and from the light and harmony which are the abode of Spirit, only reflections of good can come. All things beautiful and harmless are ideas of Mind. Mind creates and multiplies them, and the product must be mental.

4. 281 : 14-17, 20-24

The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things.

When we put off the false sense for the true, and see that sin and mortality have neither Principle nor permanency, we shall learn that sin and mortality are without actual origin or rightful existence.

5. 283 : 1-7

As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God.

Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action. Mind is the same Life, Love, and wisdom "yesterday, and to-day, and forever."

6. 246 : 23-31

Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.

Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.

7. 247 : 13-27

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.

Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly. Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.

8. 210 : 11-18

Knowing that Soul and its attributes were forever manifested through man, the Master healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, feet to the lame, thus bringing to light the scientific action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies and giving a better understanding of Soul and salvation. Jesus healed sickness and sin by one and the same metaphysical process.

9. 211 : 24-31

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.

10. 213 : 7-10 (to ,), 16-19, 30-8

Immortal and spiritual facts exist apart from this mortal and material conception. God, good, is self-existent and self-expressed,

Sound is a mental impression made on mortal belief. The ear does not really hear. Divine Science reveals sound as communicated through the senses of Soul — through spiritual understanding.

Before human knowledge dipped to its depths into a false sense of things, — into belief in material origins which discard the one Mind and true source of being, — it is possible that the impressions from Truth were as distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the primitive prophets. If the medium of hearing is wholly spiritual, it is normal and indestructible.

If Enoch's perception had been confined to the evidence before his material senses, he could never have "walked with God," nor been guided into the demonstration of life eternal.

11. 214 : 26-7

How transient a sense is mortal sight, when a wound on the retina may end the power of light and lens! But the real sight or sense is not lost. Neither age nor accident can interfere with the senses of Soul, and there are no other real senses. It is evident that the body as matter has no sensation of its own, and there is no oblivion for Soul and its faculties. Spirit's senses are without pain, and they are forever at peace. Nothing can hide from them the harmony of all things and the might and permanence of Truth.

If Spirit, Soul, could sin or be lost, then being and immortality would be lost, together with all the faculties of Mind; but being cannot be lost while God exists.

12. 215 : 11-14

Spiritual vision is not subordinate to geometric altitudes. Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.

13. 490 : 14-18

Human theories are helpless to make man harmonious or immortal, since he is so already, according to Christian Science. Our only need is to know this and reduce to practice the real man's divine Principle, Love.

14. 248 : 26-29

We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives.

15. 249 : 1-10

Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.

Let the "male and female" of God's creating appear. Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine "powers that be." Such is the true Science of being.