PSST: To God, the Only Cause and Creator, be the praise!
Possible Sunday School Topics (PSSTs) for The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson:
“God the Only Cause and Creator”
for May 29-June 4, 2023
prepared by Merrill Boudreaux, C.S., for CedarS Camps
pegasus6524@gmail.com • 314-308-1059
P.S.S.T. Golden Text (GT)/Psalm 75:1: “Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we give thanks: for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare.”
The subject for this week’s lesson is a clear statement without equivocation. It forms the basis for daily practice of how to live a life of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. It aligns with the First Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;”
Mary Baker Eddy states in Science & Health, “The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science.”
As we look to this week’s lesson, let us recommit our lives to loving and living this “favorite text”.
Responsive Reading (RR)/Psalm 40:5; Ephesians 2:10,20,21; Eph. 3:14-21.
Think of yourself as a “building fitly framed together” especially if something in or with your body seems out of whack (balance). Bow your knees to the Father, that is, submit to what God knows about you, “to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” Then you can say the words which we often hear coming from Christians today, “To God be the praise.”
P.S.S.T. Section 1 – See what Isaiah wrote in citation B1/Isa.45:5, “I am the Lord, and there is none else,…” What is the clarity in that statement?
- I am
- None else
What then are you accepting, believing, about your relationship to this I am, this none else?
P.S.S.T. Sections 2 – The opening of this section in the lesson reiterates “To God be the glory.” As you read citation B4 from Genesis 1, please select key phrases that support the idea of Only and None Else.
- God said
- And there was
- God saw
- It was good
- God created man in his own image and likeness
See how God and you are inextricably linked, no separation between you and your Creator.
Read together citation S5/Science & Health 502:29.
Where do you fit in this statement?
What benefits are yours as one of “the highest ideas”?
P.S.S.T. Sections 3 – How long has God known you?
See citation B7/Jeremiah 1:4,5.
Science & Health states clearly that you are “the offspring of Spirit”: and that “the beautiful, good, and pure constitute [your] ancestry”, that is, your history, and that God is your Father (cit. S7/63:5).
Your work is to show forth the evidence of man as the “perfect model of God’s creation” as stated in citation S9/260:7. What is the nature of a model – to follow and be like its original, its creator.
Read together Hymn 12 from the Christian Science Hymnal, paying particular attention to the 3rd verse. (words printed below)
Hymn 12
Arise ye people, take your stand, / Cast out your idols from the land, / Above all doctrine, form or creed / Is found the Truth that meets your need. / Christ’s promise stands: they that believe / His works shall do, his power receive.
Go forward then, and as ye preach / So let your works confirm your speech, / And prove to all with following sign / The Word of God is power divine. / In love and healing ministry / Show forth the Truth that makes men free.
O Father-Mother God, whose plan / Hath given dominion unto man, / In Thine own image we may see / Man pure and upright, whole and free. / And ever through our work shall shine / That light whose glory, Lord, is Thine.
(Hymn. 12:1–3)
P.S.S.T. Section 4 – If you are wondering about the state of the world, about war, poverty, man’s inhumanity to his fellow beings, look to citation B10/Jeremiah 2:1,11,13, for solace.
“Hath a nation changed their gods?” Note that it doesn’t say that God has changed, but that the nation has changed, that the nation may have forgotten or forsaken, or turned away from, their Creator, their model.
See the prayer of returning and restoration in citation B12/Isaiah 45:8,11. Read this prayer together.
What is the promise in citation B13/Isaiah 40:26? “…for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” That’s you, you cannot fail when you look to your forever and only Cause and Creator for guidance and direction.
P.S.S.T. Section 5 – What are promises in this section?
- The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me
- In the day of trouble I will call upon thee, for thou will answer me
- Thou doest wondrous things
- Thou art God alone
- You will not abide in darkness [There is great comfort in this promise – freedom from fear, from dark thoughts, from thoughts of impending doom]
- “The Christian Scientist, understanding… that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the truth of being, to destroy the error” (cit. S15/423:8-12)
P.S.S.T. Section 6 – Are you called, as Jesus called the other disciples? What is the result of such calling to you personally? See citation B19/Matthew 10:1. You have such power.
What does the seal on the cover of Science & Health demand of you/us? If you doubt whether those promises are yours, read what is written in citation S18/328:28, “Jesus’ promise is perpetual.”
Memorize citation S19/144:27, “When the Science of being is universally understood, every man will be his own physician, and Truth will be the universal panacea.”
P.S.S.T. Section 7 – As you desire to pray for the world, to benefit mankind, see what your Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, says in citation S20/170:22-24, “Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress.”
So this lesson comes full circle and ends where it began – One Cause and Creator, and our leader’s favorite text, the First Commandment.
Open the door of your thought and welcome in this truth so that you and all whom your thoughts rest upon are benefited.
Read together Miscellany 210:2-11: (printed here)
“Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full. There is no door through which evil can enter, and no space for evil to fill in a mind filled with goodness. Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited.”
