GEMs to TREASURE TO START & STAY with the WHOLENESS of GOD’S PERFECT CREATION!
Sunday, May 28th, 2023
By Warren Huff (with insights from Cobbey Crisler)
Click here to print PDF version
GEMs to TREASURE TO START & STAY with the WHOLENESS of
GOD’S PERFECT CREATION!
God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler & others
as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“God the Only Cause and Creator”
for Sunday, June 4, 2023
(Cobbey Crisler’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps
HERE’S A LINK to a 1999 Sentinel Radio Round-table discussion of the first day of creation as recorded in Genesis 1:3-5/citation B4: https://sentinel.christianscience.com/sentinel-audio/sentinel-radio-edition/1996/genesis-roundtable-first-day-of-creation?s=copylink
ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ORIGIN AS THE DOMINION MAN CLIMAX OF SPIRIT’S CREATION — AS SPIRIT’S VERY GOOD IMAGE AND LIKENESS
transcribed from W’s notes on Cobbey Crisler talks on Genesis 1 (citation B4):
“Genesis chapter 1 was written in response to the Hebrew people’s crisis of exile.
“Verse 2 attempts to explain how creation occurred as well as how a new beginning could occur out of the vacuity of nothingness of exile. To the post-exilic authors of Genesis 1 “the earth was without form and void” – or “Toe-who” and Boe-who” – the translated names of the Babylonian mythical leviathan-like, sea monster and their mythical behemoth-like, land monster. The modern day myth is that we evolved from the sea to be dry land creatures with a refined further way of animal thought and life. Human thought was dark much like “darkness on the face of the waters.” … Spirit is the root of the whole word inspiration… No advance can occur in life without inspiration—so “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”… This happens also when Jesus is baptized, coming “straightway out of the water,” as part of a divine announcement. He sees “the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him.” (Matthew 3:16) Consequently, one recognizes that if Spirit represents the motive of his career, it’s an inspired career…
“It’s how the entire Bible begins (Genesis 1:2) because “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” It’s almost as if in Jesus’ baptism, we’re getting this genesis of God’s creation, that first chapter, applied on earth. The Spirit is moving on those waters in which Jesus is standing. There is a Spirit genesis here. Look at what happened in Genesis 1 in those brief verses when creation is depicted for us.”
Verse 3 (from a bumper sticker that Barry Huff enjoyed seeing) “The Big Bang theory: “Let there be light” and BANG! It happened!”) “Light (“or” in Hebrew, “phos” in Greek) was created before the stars… The motif here is that of the creation of the world by the WORD and a differentiation between the light and light-bearers.” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
Verse 4 records the first Quality Control-check—“it was good.”
Application ideas:
“Any lack of originality is only a lack of knowledge about your true origin.”
Compare the development of any right idea in business or otherwise to the mental model of creation in Genesis 1:
Verse 3 = the dawning of the light or idea
Verses 4-6 = the analysis (compare and divide as on the first day)
Verses 7-10 = the decisive, solid manifestation of the idea (dry land appears)
Verses 11-12 = investment in the idea and its productivity
Verse 13 = exposing the idea to light universally, marketing it
Verse 14-31 = diversification (lights for seasons, living creatures multiplying, male & female)
Verse 2:1-3 = rest (not inertia, but success of the idea and its continuing yield)
DISCOVER THE INDIVISIBLE NATURE OF GOD’S CREATION from the end of Genesis 1 (citation B5):
[Cobbey said:] “Searching the scriptures does require scuba diving or at least snorkeling because there’s a need for both clear vision and inspiration.
Verse 26 Here in a book noted for its monotheism we find plural words relative to God. (“Let US make man in OUR likeness…”) Father-Mother (F-M) must be together indivisibly or we have more than one God. If there’s indivisibility in the original there must be indivisibility in the product.
Verse 27. To have Male-Female (M-F) in the product means that it’s in the original.
On IMAGE, Clemet of Alexandria wrote: “In our view, image of God is not an object of sense, but a mental object, perceived not by the senses, but by the mind.” But in Genesis 2:7 the mental model is dropped and in the material account of creation God forms man out of dust—the very OPPOSITE view.
This mimics the opposite view of male and female that is widely promoted in which sex promises us all satisfaction in physical unity—but does it deliver? The very definition of sex is division, not indivisibility. “The sensualist’s affections… and pleasures” would put one through lots of fitful, mental contortions that Mary Baker Eddy describes as “imaginary, whimsical, and unreal” (Science and Health, 241:8).
(Transcribed from notes taken by Warren Huff during several Cobbey Crisler talks from the margins of W’s Bible.)
BE CLAD WITH “FEAR NOT…” ANGEL MESSAGES!
Isaiah 43:1/cit. B8 An example of one of Cobbey Crisler’s Sunday School student who proved God is “… the one who saves me from violence.” (II Samuel 22:3; plus Isa. 41:10, 13, also 1 John 4:18; Job 3:25)
[Cobbey Crisler on handling thoughts of fear:] “Fear… resting in the thought of everyone, especially today, with so many things that seem to be happening unexpectedly. Is that all accumulating in the form of suppressed fear? Look at what Job says happens.
“…the thing that I have greatly feared is come upon me…” (Job 3:25)
What is the relationship between the fear and the thing? … It’s magnetic.
If we understand that to be true about the quality of fear in thought, would anyone be afraid again? Would anyone in his right mind want to be afraid again? If we knew all that fear was doing— was attracting the thing that we were afraid of— right to us? Just think of the disservice so many Hollywood movies do, if this is correct. Also, ask yourself, if it is a coincidence, that right after we see certain movies, that we suddenly find the same disasters are occurring? The focus is human thought!
This is one of the most beautiful exposures of the nature of this to-and-fro evil to attack humanity. Our effort must be to break that magnetism so that the thing feared cannot come to man individually or collectively, because there’s nothing in thought to attract it.
The textbook gives us the solution to fear, the textbook of the Bible. Because 1st John (4:18) gives us the solution to fear. What is it? “Perfect Love castest out fear:” What kind of love? It’s got to be perfect, not a chink in it, in the armor. Is that stating to us that only in thought is a complete defense, or panoply (a complete suit of armor), with the threat of something that otherwise would be fearsome indeed?
[Powerful application example shared by Cobbey:]
One of my Sunday School students once had the rest of the class on the edges of their chairs as a result of an experience she had just that week. It illustrates this. She was walking home very late at night after an extension course at a local college in a very poor area of town, not lit very well. As she was walking through suddenly she heard a car behind her. It squealed its brakes, stopped at the curb, and out jumped four leather-jacketed “gentlemen.” They ran right towards her, grabbed her, and started dragging her into the nearby woods.
Here comes the big question, like it came from Noah, like it came for Daniel, like it came for Job. Here it is still a question mark in her thought. That girl had been used to studying the Bible. She was pretty good with it theoretically. Here came an opportunity to see if it had any practical value. Of course, you don’t think too intellectually at times like that. She said to the class that all that came to her was something she hadn’t even recognized was from the Bible. She never even remembered reading it. It was (from Isaiah 41:10, cit. B5 & Isa. 43:5) “Fear not for I am with you.” She kept shouting that at the top of her lungs, “Fear not for I am with you.”
Here was a mob scene. Something in the human nature of one of those boys was touched by that higher sense because it broke up the mob slightly. He said, “Hey, wait a minute, let’s let her alone. She’s not that kind of a girl.” That brief stopping of what looked like the inevitable was sufficient for a car, just coming around to catch the scene in its headlights. It was a police car. The boys dropped her fast, got into their car and took off. The policemen, sizing it up quickly, stopped, went over to this gal and picked her up and said, “Would you like a ride home? Are you alright?” She said, “Yes, thank you very much.” She rode in the car with the policemen back to her house and the driver said, “You know, little lady, how lucky you are. This isn’t our regular beat. Our beat’s one block up from here. But my buddy said, ‘Hey, tonight, why don’t we just go down and check that area?’ So, I agreed and we went.”
That gal, in really reaching out for the only possible help—there was no human help — had apparently touched the solution for her experience that could be the solution for all of us. What needed to be counteracted in thought was fear, because look what came to her, “Fear not!” Why? The textbook answer, “For I am with thee.” Just that mustard seed was able to counteract what would have been the magnetic attraction to the thing she greatly feared. It was also apparently enough to, not only reach the thought of one boy, but perhaps even to alert the policemen to an idea that they had not contemplated on the previous night.
And everything arrived at once. You can imagine what that meant to the kids when they heard that in Sunday School and to me as well. I’ve always kind of taken it as a beautiful example of what Job is saying here in revealing the nature of fear. (Job 3:25)
There’s a movie ad I read not too recently showing that we’re almost gluttons for punishment as far as human nature is concerned. That movie ad—maybe you’ve seen it—it promises audiences in big, bold headlines, “AT LAST—TOTAL TERROR!” (Laughter) Who wants total terror? But people are paying money for it! When they leave that theater, what’s dancing on their eyelids and their mental memory as far as these things are concerned? What does a knock on the door, or a scream in the night, or anything else now mean in terms of the helplessness of man and man shoved back into no-dominion-at-all, but fatalistically waiting for what comes?”
“The Case of Job,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[Warren: What a memorable proof and comfort it was to that girl and to the whole class to hear first-hand that “whoso putteth his (her) trust in the Lord shall be safe.” (Proverbs 29:25]
SHOW YOUR BOUNCE-BACK RESILIENCE: KEEP THE KINGDOM AS YOUR CORE & YOUR ALL! (cit. S12/262:15)
With the Kingdom at your core, even if thrown down hard, you won’t fall apart like an egg!
You’ll bounce back even higher – like a golf ball!
Jesus tells us clearly “the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21)
Mary Baker Eddy adds: “These clearer, higher views inspire the God-like man to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.” (S&H 262:15/citation S12)
Elsewhere she states: “God is at once the absolute centre and circumference of being.” (S&H 203:32-1)
Several decades ago when one of these citations was also in the Christian Science Bible Lesson, I decided to dissect a golf ball to explore its circumference and its center to see what made it bounce back so resiliently in the “hard-knock life” that it was designed to lead. To dissect the one pictured, I clamped it in a vise and hack-sawed it in half. I found it had an inner rubber ball wrapped tightly in a bunch of rubber-bands that snapped as they were cut. (My dissected golf ball is shown as bottom Download of this GEM online.)
Spiritual sense and resilience are especially valuable in changeable and tough times, because we and the team we’re on can ill-afford to have us “go all to pieces” like a broken egg—or to make it so others need to “handle us with kid-gloves” because if they don’t, we might fall apart or “fly off the handle.” The Golf Ball versus Egg analogy relates to the testing and proving of one’s spiritual resilience “to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.” (S&H 262: 15, cit. S12) It helps us spiritually perceive that “God is at once the centre and circumference of being.” (S&H 203:32-1)
I have reasoned many times since then with myself and with Sunday School students, campers and counselors (all who got to handle the cut-up ball), that, like rubber bands, we, as spiritual ideas, are made to be stretched. And, I usually remind them (and myself), “whatever stretches you (beyond your “comfort zone”)— blesses you.”
These “clearer, higher views inspire the God-like man” (you!) to resiliently bounce back from all kinds of hard-knocks and throw-downs. In fact, like a golf ball, you as a spiritual idea knowing that God’s kingdom reigns over and within you and all, will bounce back higher the harder you are thrown down. (The best example of the highest-bounce-back is Jesus’ hardest throw-down of the crucifixion followed by his highest bounce-back of the resurrection and ascension!)
On Easter Sunday when I teach Sunday School I like to pre-hide Easter Balls instead of Easter Eggs and have illustrated the contrast between the resilient characteristics of a bouncy, vinyl-shell golf ball with a fragile, raw egg and its easily broken shell (circumference) and its squishy yoke core (centre). The harder a raw egg is thrown down, the more it splatters! On Easter (egg) Sunday, we always discuss how the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy tell us of our Genesis 1 spiritual origin instead of an egg origin or dust origin. I usually quip that “If you think that you started out as an egg, you’re very likely to end up scrambled.”
Then, to turn things into thoughts and to “strengthen our shells” so as to not crack easily, we often read together “Taking Offense” where Mary Baker Eddy counsels against having a fragile, easily-ruffled or touchy disposition. (Miscellaneous Writings, page 223:24.)
To live love resiliently, Paul tells us, “Love is not easily provoked”… or splattered (I Corinthians 13). Whenever you become easily provoked, one might say, “the yoke’s on you.”
LET GOD PERFECT EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU!
Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 138:8 (cit. B14)
“Psalms 138:8 Despite the fact that many of these psalms come de profundus, right out of the depths, out of the pits, to use a modern term, Verse 8 of Psalms 138 says, “The Lord will perfect [that which] concerneth me.” What’s the goal? To obviate all need for healing is the goal in the Bible. Not to have you come back and make more appointments for newly-arrived-at diseases, but to obviate healing completely. Do you remember the inhabitants of the spiritual city of Zion in Isaiah? What it says about the inhabitants? “You shall not say I am sick” (Isaiah 33:24)”.
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
WELCOME CHRIST TO STOP BEING SICK OF A FEVER & OF HEARING ABOUT IT 24/7!
Cobbey Crisler on citation B11, Matthew 8:14, 15, 16 (+ “Hurricane season” bonus Matt. 8:26)
EXERCISE DOMINION over ALL THAT LOOKS TO BE OUTSIDE of YOU—EVEN THE ELEMENTS!)
[Cobbey:] “(Verse 14. We come to the third healing [in Matthew’s series of 10 of Jesus’ proofs after the Sermon on the Mount of his Messiahship by his works, the healing of] Peter’s mother-in-law. To have a mother-in-law, Peter had to be married. Peter had a wife. It’s on the Sabbath day, too. But does Jesus consider women that important? Would he break the Sabbath for a woman? One may think that he might for a man. But would he do it for a woman? He does. Whatever business he had in Peter’s house, he puts all aside and gives priority to the mother-in-law’s needs. Despite the fact that it was the Sabbath. (Verse 15). He heals her of fever. [W: So much, for the supposed length and severity of the coronavirus as advertised these days—as well as for its being communicable… “and she arose and ministered unto them.”].
(Verse 16). “Many come, when the even was come to be healed.” Why the evening? Because then the Sabbath is over and they could all come without any fear of recriminations from the Jews.
[W: Added BONUS if you keep reading you can see in Jesus’ fourth proof, the stilling of the storm, an encouraging application to today’s weather concerns.
“(Verse 26). “He says, “Why are ye fearful,” immediately seeing the thought, reading the thought, “you of little faith.” He rebukes the wind and the sea; “and there was a great calm.” That tells us something about what it must mean in Genesis 1 (Verse 26/cit. B4) when man “was given dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air.” Is it possible? Is Jesus telling man it is possible that he can exercise dominion over the elements? He has within him the kingdom of heaven, dominion that can be exercised over what looks (to be) outside of him…]
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
VIDEO Bonus 1 of this scene reenacted in Season 1 of “The Chosen” at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZhUwOhP6a8
VIDEO Bonus 2 of the director’s explanation of a meaningful backstory to this healing reenacted in Season 1 of “The Chosen” at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywNvWU9ZsTA
BE AN ANSWER TO JESUS’ PRAYER FOR HEALERS, SOLVING PROBLEMS TO BRING IN THE HARVEST!
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 9, verse 35-38/cit. B18 and Matt. 10:1/cit. B19)
“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
(Matthew 9:35 highlighted every shows there’s no incurability!)
[Cobbey:] “In Matthew 9, Verse 36, Jesus is looking around him after he disposes of the Pharisaical thought— “he sees multitudes needing help, moved with compassion. There they were as sheep. They were shepherdless.”
(Verse 37). He turned to his disciples then, and his disciples in future generations, and made the remark, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.” Does that imply he expected his disciples to be out there solving human problems, healing?
(Verse 38). He even asks them to “Pray the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”
We now come to Chapter 10. We’ve had so much evidence that Jesus was an effective healer, but we haven’t yet had evidence that there could be healing via the instruction-route: that could be taught to heal1 sent out like apprentices in some human trade or profession, and come back practicing the rules learned with results, namely, healed cases.
We find right after the prayer (Matthew 9:38) that God “would send forth more laborers into his harvest,” and what do we find? A mandate to heal.
(Matthew 10, Verse 1/citation B19). “He called his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, to heal” What? Only certain diseases? “All manner of disease and sickness.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
REJOICE IN HEALING SHOWING YOUR HEAVEN IDENTITY—assessable & applicable to all human problems. Cobbey Crisler on Luke 10:1, 17-20 (citation B21 plus context verses):
[Cobbey:] “Chapter 10, “the harvest is great, but there are not many workers out there.” That is what Jesus says in verse 2. It also underscores the need for disciples, and explains why now seventy go out (see verse 1).
… Verse 9 makes it quite clear that now there are not just twelve going out, but seventy whom Jesus expects to leave and come back with every kind of human problem solved through prayer alone.”
“The seventy come back” in verse 17. They are so enthusiastic over the results that they are probably tripping over each other to get to Jesus and tell him. Because they went out in pairs, he has thirty-five pairs coming back with tales of what they’d done.
Imagine any class in any subject being so effective that the entire student body could go out, do such field work, and come back with the evidence and the proof that they’d understood what they were doing, and that the teacher had been such an effective communicator!
Verse 20. Jesus said, “You know what? You are rejoicing for the wrong reason. You think it’s all great with such results out there. And it really is. But the real reason to rejoice is that your names are written in heaven.” That tells us something rather radical about the reason for rejoicing in healing. It has something to do with our identity. … It’s as if our original names and natures have been ratified as the result of healing work on earth. … If our names are written (in heaven), who did the writing? … Man, restored and whole, represents the heavenly model and standard which is the norm for man that God has revealed through Jesus to us. … And if our names are written in heaven, where is heaven? If it’s within, we don’t have to go anywhere. We don’t have to commute to find our identity. … Namely, an identity that is related to the kingdom, not anarchy or disease. It is a government, a comprehension of God and man immediately assessable to us, and applicable to the human problem…
That is so advanced because it’s so simple. What is simple is not received by a state of mind that has become used to the complex. Notice verse 21. It is a prayer of Jesus starting with gratitude, “I thank thee, O Father, that you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” My own father said to me, “There is your Scriptural authority directly from Jesus that a child should understand Bible symbolism before the scholar.” Childlike thought is receptive to meaning. It will yield. It will trust. It is ready to learn. It doesn’t have so many educated theories to get around.
Once again, we find that access to Jesus’ theology requires a mental state that isn’t childish, but is childlike, receptive and open.”
“Luke the Researcher”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
DEMONSTRATE THE HEALING EFFECTS OF COLLECTIVE PRAYER AND OF “BEING OF ONE ACCORD!” Cobbey Crisler on Acts 5:12–19/cit. B21
[Cobbey:] Acts 5, verse 12—after the ; — gives us our familiar phrase of unity. It’s what? “They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.” (See below)
Acts 5:12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
You see, they’re still connected with the temple. It’s still effectively Judaism really.
Acts 5:13 And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them.
Acts 5:14 And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)
Now, Acts 5, verse 15, shows that healing is occurring all over. As a matter of fact, the indiscriminate public sense of it was “that even Peter’s shadow passing on people seemed to heal people.” (See below)
It was that easy in those early days.
Acts 5:15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
“Many came out bringing sick people,” in verse 16. (See below)
Acts 5:16 There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.
[“Postlude” beyond the Lesson:] “And this stirs up – it seems like healing stir up Ecclesiastism more than anything else,” because Ecclesiastism isn’t capable of getting to the level (apparently) which permits them to do such healing. (See below)
Acts 5:17 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
And, in Acts 5, verse 18, “they high priest gets up and they throw the apostles in a common prison.” (See below)
Acts 5:18 And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.
Acts 5, verse 19, look at the power of collective prayer — “It can open prison doors. And they go back to the temple, and they start talking.” (See below, Acts 5:19)
Acts 5:19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth…
“After the Master, What? The Book of Acts,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
