Claim Wednesday Testimony GEMS of Mind as yours! (Yellow highlighted)
from Cobbey Crisler, Ken Cooper & others from The Christian Science Bible Lesson on
“Mind"
for August 23, 2020
GEM#1: Accept everyone and the insight of “the mind of Christ” to end divisiveness and animosity!
Cobbey Crisler on John 4:7-29 (RR) & Jesus’ long conversation with the receptive Samaria woman:
John 4:7, “In comes a woman of Samaria.” While in Jesus’ time you don’t deal with Samaritans much, you also don’t deal with women that often. When you add a Samaritan to a woman, you’ve got the least likely social contact for a Jew. Jesus doesn’t concern himself at all about these artificial ghetto outlines that others have thrown around their neighbors. "He opens the conversation with the woman." …
John 4:9, So, the woman of Samaria says, "ow come you’re talking to me?" A woman would naturally say that because she would not expect to be talking to him.
John 4: 15 The woman, not comprehending thoroughly, but nevertheless bold enough to continue asking, finally gets the practicality of Jesus' message and says, "That’s great idea. Give me this living water, and I won't take another step. Never will I have to come up with these heavy jugs and fill them with water.''
Remember, there are not too many conversations that are recorded between Jesus and anyone. The relative importance, just from the quantity of this text, stands out.
John 4:16, Jesus says “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.”
John 4:17 He knows what he's saying. He knows the whole story. So, what is he doing? He’s testing again. Here’s a Samaritan woman. What is he interested in? Is he interested in whether someone is a Jew, a Samaritan, a child, a man, a woman, a Roman centurion, a ruler of the synagogue? Does he really care? What does he really need?
What is he looking for? Receptivity. That is the universal access. It means we all have the same access if we’d only use it. Whose fault is it if we aren’t using it? It's ours. So it has nothing to do with status, culture, sex, or whatever. He's not really saying that womanhood is the best way to get to God. Or childhood, or any of those. Wherever we find receptivity it counts.
"So, '' the woman says, hedging a bit, "I don't have a husband."
John 4:18, "Whereupon Jesus said, 'How right you are. As a matter of fact, you've had five husbands, and the one you're living with right now can't exactly be called your husband '" Boy, that has a nice twentieth century ring to it.
John 4:19. All the woman can say in response to that is, "Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.” The woman is really beautiful. Jesus wouldn't spend all this time with her if he didn't see behind all this label and this stereotyped thing. There was a receptivity here that he wasn't running into regularly. He was after that. He was after womanhood as a type to replace this femaleness as a stereotype. He continued to probe in order to do this.
John 4:20. The woman said, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain.'' Boy, did that have a meaning. She's pointing to the Samaritan temple, and guess who had destroyed it? The Jews. The Maccabean rulers had destroyed the Samaritan temple which was built to resemble the Jerusalem temple. It's occupied territory. It's a little difficult to dig in an area that Jordan still claims but Israel occupies.
It was destroyed by the Jews, so you can see the irony behind what the woman said, "Our fathers worshiped …” It’s past. It's through. The Greek word that is used there is well in the past, "all wiped out." We worshiped in this mountain, but the implication, guess who stopped us, or ruined the temple? Your fathers. We have a divisive thing. We, the Samaritans, worshiped here. You, the Jews, destroyed it. That's the same thing that's going on today in the same location.
John 4:21, "Jesus said, Woman.” this is his general address to womanhood, "Believe me. the hour cometh, " still somewhat ahead, "when you won’t worry about geography in worshiping God.”
John 4:23, ''The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” Look at the definition of worship. “Worship is spiritual,” not structural, not geographical, not ritualistic. Why? Because worship of God can only properly be done by partaking of God's own nature.
John 4:24 tells us that "God is Spirit. Therefore worshiping Spirit can only be done spiritually." There's no other way to do it. How basic. By the way, when you see "a Spirit" in there. It shouldn’t be there.
Listen to what God says about it. Notice the strong tenor of his words. To translate "God is a Spirit" is the most gross perversion of the meaning. "A Spirit" implies one of a class of "pneumata," the Greek word for it. There is no trace, in the fourth gospel, of the vulgar conception of a multitude of spirits. “God is Spirit.” Mathematically one can only derive from Spirit included in it. Namely, spirituality is the derivation. Worship must be that.
Notice what is done as this woman's thought. Women weren't supposed to discuss the Scriptures. There was a first century rabbi, Eleazar, who said, "To teach a woman Scripture was like teaching her lasciviousness." That's some extreme. That was the kind of thought that was at some rabbinical extremes in the first century, not necessarily the general Jewish view, but Eleazar is considered quite a great rabbi.
Jesus is discussing intellectual problems of Scripture with a woman. This is unheard of!
John 4:25 "That woman suddenly comes to him and says, I know that Messiah is coming.” How about that for recognition! “I know that the Messiah is coming which is called Christ.” She didn’t say that right. Why, is that in the text? Because it is for the Greeks. “I know that the Messiah when he comes will tell us all things.”
John 4:26 Jesus, in one of those rare occurrences, is discouraged from turning the fact that he was the Messiah that into an advertising campaign. Rather, he focuses on this woman and her receptivity, “He said, I that speak unto you am he.”
John 4:27, '"When the disciples come back, their only problem is that he's talking with the woman.”
John 4:28, "The woman leaves her water pot.” That's what she'd come for, but she went away with living water. "She ran into the city"
John 4:29, "She said to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did. It’s got to be the Messiah. "
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
GEM#2: Like Job, find the identity & unity of One Mind to solve conflicts of many opinions!
Cobbey Crisler on Job 23:13, 14 (B3):
“In Job 23:13 we find two revelations from God to Job about God’s nature. Because there’s only one way that you and I can ever find out anything out about God who is the only one who knows who God is, God [Himself/Herself]. God must do the revealing and here Job has two concepts revealed to him about God. And you know we don’t get anything unless we’re ready for it. Job is ready. He needs this, doesn’t he?… Why does Job need to know God as “one [mind], and as soul”?
What’s been his problem? One problem is identity. He said (in Job 9:21, 22) even “[if I said] I am perfect… Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul:” Here if soul is identified with God, where does one find one’s identity? The, whatever he was thinking about as his soul, if he had it, would have to image forth the One Soul. How many souls are there? If you relate the word “soul” to God, there is no other possible alternative than for a monotheist to see one, with whatever is revealed to us about God. That may be tough logic, but if soul is related to God, as a synonym, then there can only be One. So, to seek his identity in that oneness-of-God will tell him more about himself.
What about one mind? Why did he need to know that? [Voice: Because it was God?”] That’s right. And he’d been having a dialogue with many minds, hadn’t he? Nothing but just One Mind as opposed to many, polytheistic gods, or many minds, many opinions… Just think of that beautiful revelation that comes as a solution to all that.”
[W’s PS. on verse 14: It relieves all fear of poor performance to know that “…he performeth the thing that is appointed for me…” This could be restated that “God is the performer; and we are the performance”… and that “many such things are with him.”
“The Book of Job: A Mental Court Case” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
GEM#3: Change your priorities, like Naaman, to overcome instant gratification urges, pride and anger and to humbly obey the simple demands of spiritual seeing.
Cobbey Crisler on II Kings 5:1-27 (B5+) & Naaman’s healing of pride, leprosy
“[In 2 Kings,] Chapter 5, we’re going to have another example of healing, of leprosy. 1This example involves a Syrian, a non-Jew. It is one that Jesus himself cites later on. Remember Jesus said [in Luke 4:27], “There were many lepers in Israel.” But, he didn’t go to them, he went to a Syrian. He wasn’t even an Israelite, showing that receptivity has no ghetto, no narrowly drawn lines.
We have an insight into what is going on in Naaman’s thinking here which is helpful, as far as studying the method used here in healing. When “Naaman comes [in Verse 9 of Chapter 5] with his horse, chariot,” only accoutrements of his position. Notice the accoutrements of his position had done nothing for his leprosy. Yet that’s what he came for. That was his priority for the moment. Elisha didn’t serve that priority, did he? He disappointed him.
Apparently, that’s the lesson of the story. If Naaman wanted a healing he had to change his priorities. “Elisha merely sends a messenger out [Verse 10], ‘Go and wash in Jordan.’” Jordan you can go and leap across at some portions. Yes, “seven times.” For a man that was used to instant action, like Naaman: He orders, it occurs. You can imagine that this was not exactly as what he expected. But the promise is, if he does this, here’s the equation again, the result will be that his “flesh will come unto him restored and clean.”
Naaman says, “Forget it” [Verse 11]. Out go all the accoutrements with him. But notice in Verse 12 you at least get the name of one of the early ancient cars. We have Cougars, and various other names for our cars. In Verse 12, Naaman “turned and went away in a rage.” [Laughter] The same automobile manufacturer makes a huff. [Laughter] Some people go away in that. The servants, the humble thought, suggest to him [in Verse 13]. “You know, if the prophet had wanted you to do something really dramatic, you would have done that. Why quibble when it’s simpler?” The simple requirement for healing, perhaps being asked of us all through our lives, but we wait for more dramatic demands. They never come.
[In Verse 14] “He goes down.” He listens. “He dips himself seven times in Jordan and his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child.” Not even the flesh he, perhaps would have expected, but the pure, clear “flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”
[Beyond citation B5, FYI]
Of course, in Verse 15 he’s ready to give the world to Elisha. [In Verse 16] Elisha accepts none of it. But guess who does? [In Verses 20-23] his servant’s willing to deal under the table. Unfortunately, [in Verses 25-27] his servant gets the results of his thoughts and becomes leprous himself.”
transcribed from “Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
GEM#4: Open your eyes to and experience all things being possible to God. For Ken Cooper YouTube monologues click on “Naaman’s Awakening” and “The Withered Hand Restored,” and his poem, “God and Man Are One.”
[Ken wrote:] “The mind of Christ” predates the human Jesus, but has been with man since before time… Mary Baker Eddy writes “The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man.” Science & Health (SH) 284:31-32, which is the natural outcome of The Word, Logos, speaking the Truth throughout all time. The “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness.” SH 332:9-11 and was epitomized by Jesus the Christ.
The infinity of God is the infinity of Mind, — there is no place where God’s good ideas cannot be found and identified, or unseen / unknown by the Christ. When we are receptive to the Christ, we have biblical assurance that all things are possible. This is what Elisha proved. Listen to “Naaman's Awakening.” It was the mind of Christ that spoke through the little child that led to Naaman seeking out Elisha, eventually stirring this great man to a change in thinking that led to his healing. It also revealed to Elisha the thoughts of the Syrian king, and brought peace to their countries. Paradoxically perhaps, when we open our eyes to understanding we hear the words of Truth, the expression of Mind. Mind is all-inclusive, and embraces all the spiritual senses to perfection.
When Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, all those who witnessed the healing felt the power of the Christ, and for some the mind of the Christ took over their lives. Listen to the monologue “The Withered Hand Restored,” the healing as witnessed by his best friend.
When Jesus preached in the synagogues, he too was expressing the Christ. In humility he recognised the All-power of Mind, and the transfiguration encapsulated the great truth that man is the beloved son of God. “Hear ye him” is the “true idea voicing good” in our consciousness. Understanding there is only one Mind, when we hear we obey. The poem “God and Man Are One” rejoices in this truth.
We all share the infinite mind of Christ, it is therefore always being manifested through us, for the voice of God, Spirit, decrees that we understand what we hear, and so respond freely and unfettered with the power of divine love.
The words in pdf versions are attached to CedarS online Met as upper right Downloads.
Wednesday Testimony in GEM#5: “Sing All-in for Healing!” Welcome healing by singing with the purifying & invigorating “sunlight of Truth!” (citation S9, 162:4) “Should we be silent? Ah, never.” (Hymn 283)
I can never keep from sharing my gratitude for the life-altering healing I had from the whole-hearted singing of healing hymns and from applying the truths of this “sunlight of Truth” citation!
As part of CedarS Bonus Thanksgiving Lesson Met for 2009 I wrote: “After a joyous 2008 summer and fall of service, I found myself agonizing in the passenger seat during our evening move home from camp. I sang (along with the sound system) many hymns that I knew by heart—thanks to years of CedarS Hymn Sing experience—belting them out, at first through tears of intense pain, and later through tears of immense gratitude. [I love Hymn Sings!!]
For the first part of the trip the disabling discomfort just wouldn't let up—no matter how I changed my position or what hymns or citations I prayed. The pain seemed to radiate from a huge, internal growth that had been steadily growing for several months. It had attempted to rob me of my appetite and vigor as well as of all ability to lift one of my legs.
In deepest humility—and supported by the prayers of the dear driver, of my mom and of a practitioner who I kept calling—I continued to reach out to God and to sing each word with renewed understanding, conviction and vigor. With tears of joy I cherished the truths about my spiritual nature as if they were being tenderly told to me in order to save my life for God's service—and that they did!
All pain finally broke thanks to this all-out, fervent praying and singing—and I have hardly stopped smiling or singing since. I remain eternally grateful that I took "God-is-All" instead of Tylenol—that I chose whole-hearted reliance on Christianly scientific prayer to eliminate not only the pain, but also its cause rather that just opting to temporarily relieve suffering.
I knew when I got home without pain that I was healed, although the draining and dissolving of the growth took several more weeks of consistent "ray-delineation therapy" which "dissolves tumors" with the invigorating purity of "the sunlight of Truth" that "Christian Science brings to the body." (S&H 162:4, S13 in this week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson on "God the Only Cause and Creator") I applied each ray of this divine, healing sunlight – shining the specific, promising laws and wonderful ideas laid-out in the following precious paragraph.”
"Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates (refreshes, revitalizes, stimulates, enlivens, energizes, animates, rejuvenates, strengthens) and purifies (cleanses, disinfects, sanitizes, decontaminates, filters). Christian Science acts as an alterative (a medicinal plant that causes a gradual beneficial change in the body, usually through improved nutrition and elimination, without having any marked specific action OR A medicine or treatment which gradually induces a change, and restores healthy functions without sensible evacuations), neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions (emissions, discharges, oozings), expels humors (4 Medieval ones to be balanced: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, black bile), dissolves tumors (growths, cancers, lumps, swellings), relaxes rigid muscles ("thought-forces"), restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, get up, revive) the human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point), on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind." (S&H 162:4).
Have fun letting your body and life sing-out about this transforming "sunlight of Truth"!
Testimony examples in GEM#6: Know that not of myself, but “with God all things are possible” – even to “know the past, the present and the future” (SH 84:11, S11;180:25-27, S10)
[Warren Huff:] These citations from Science and Health in Section 3 of this week’s Bible lesson, along with the Bible stories about what Elisha said and did in II Kings 6:8-17, and what Jesus discerned about the Samaritan woman at the well [John 4:7-29, (RR)] and in the thoughts of the scribes and Pharisees [Luke 6:8, (B13)] remind me of two, all-glory-to-God demonstrations of these truths when they appeared in a Christian Science Bible Lesson to enable two seemingly impossible healings during finals week of my Freshman year at Princeton University.
Besides working out in daily spring training for the football team and working about 20-hour a week in University food service and mail delivery, as well as in daily recess coaching at Miss Mason’s School (right across from the Christian Science church in Princeton), I had a course load of five demanding classes. What made my upcoming finals week even tougher that year was having a schedule of all five of my 3-hour finals in a row in the first five exam periods of the week. The first was 9am-noon Monday morning, the second 2-5pm Monday afternoon, the third 7-10pm Monday evening, the fourth 9am-noon Tuesday morning and the fifth 2-5pm Tuesday afternoon. To top that off, I’d fallen behind on the heavy reading assignments in a couple of the courses. So, on the Saturday morning before these finals, I thought, “How am ever going to be able to humanly read, study and prepare for these exams with no real study time between them?”
Just as I started to ponder my seemingly impossible situation, a dull pain in my right side that I’d been aware of overnight suddenly became very sharp and did not go away. A roommate, whose dad was a doctor, suggested that it looked like my appendix had burst and that I was having an attack of appendicitis. I chose to handle this suggestion with prayer just as I’d had done successfully to meet many other challenges – from making hard decisions to experiencing very quick healings of broken bones, severe wounds, sprained ankles, torn cartilage… When this very aggressive problem refused to yield quickly to my own prayers, I tried to reach out for help from a Christian Science Practitioner. I struggled to get to the privacy of a pay phone booth on campus … (this was B.C.— Before Cell phones). I was seeking the uniquely powerful, prayerful support known as a Christian Science treatment which is given with the healing power of principled love by wonderful Christian Science practitioners (who are normally readily available worldwide).
When none of the practitioners I knew from camp and from church answered my calls, and no human help seemed to be instantly available, I hobbled my way – still doubled over in pain— to a Christian Science Reading Room. Its “quiet precincts” were just a few blocks away on Nassau Street and this proved to be a perfect place to reach out directly to God for the angel messages needed for a quick healing.
For five to six spiritually supported hours that Saturday, I was the only visitor to the private study area in the back of the Reading Room. That “sacred secrecy” enabled me to feel free enough to often stretch out on the floor when sitting up wasn’t comfortable… (SH 118:8) Whenever I physically struggled, I spiritually snuggled up to the Comforter to apply passages of teachings that I was clinging to from that week’s Christian Science Bible lesson. I kept coming back to an uplifting assurance in a sentence near the end of page 57 in Science and Health. This promise was also in a recent Christian Science Bible Lesson. It reads: “… Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven.” (I underlined until because that’s what I was mentally underlining.)
I saw clearly that as long as my heart was sighing (moaning, groaning, complaining…) over the world—over exam-based concerns, time-based pressures and body-based pains… [or over today’s worldwide virus, economy concerns, racial tensions…] — it could not begin “to unfold its wings for heaven” and healing.
I really started to unfold the wings of my heart for heaven as I cherished other profoundly significant truths about the infinite possibilities of being at one with all-knowing, divine Mind. Included in the lesson was the account of Joseph’s divine intuition that enabled him to know and share the humanly unknowable dream of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:1-57). [Elisha is an example in this week’s Bible Lesson of a prophet who glorified divine Mind’s omniscience. See II Kings 6:8-17, B9.] I reasoned that this oneness with God was mine too and that divine Mind would give me the insights and healing results I needed as well as what I needed to study and what I needed to write on my upcoming exams. I loved that Joseph shared how he humbly did this when he told Pharaoh, “it is not in me: God shall give … an answer of peace.” (Genesis 41:16).
That private Reading Room study area also gave me a perfect, peaceful place to feel free enough to seek and find the Comforter’s comfort by wholeheartedly belting out favorite hymns. I knew by heart all of Mary Baker Eddy’s hymns, plus scores of others, from years of singing them in Sunday School and from CedarS Hymn Sings every Sunday night. On this Saturday I was forced to study for my exams in the unconventional way of cherishing and singing each word of every hymn as if my comfort, my grades and my very life depended on it. (And, I think they all did depend on that unique and powerful preparation and were blessed immeasurably by it.)
I’ll always remember how spiritual sense gave me more and more peace, as I closed my healing hymn sing by cherishing each word of “Christ My Refuge” (Hymn 254-258) by Mary Baker Eddy. At about 3pm my tears of pain changed to tears of joy! The pain finally lifted off (for good!) as I let my heart sing the following laws, “O’er waiting harps strings of the mind, there sweeps a strain, Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind The power of pain… And wake a white-winged angel throng of thoughts illumed By faith, and breathed in raptured song, With love perfumed. Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show Life’s burden’s light. I kiss the cross, and wake to know A world more bright… I see Christ walk and come to me and tenderly divinely talk. Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock (Matt. 7:24-29, B12) … whereto God leadeth me. (Christian Science Hymnal #254)
With renewed freedom, I was inspired to RUN back to my Dodd Hall dorm room and to eat normally with my impressed roommates at “Commons.” After dinner Saturday night and Sunday, I prepared with peaceful inspiration for my three final exams on Monday and the fourth one on Tuesday morning. As I studied I was filled with humble gratitude—both for my healing, and in advance for being divinely led to review just what I needed to know.
However, when I turned over the fifth exam paper on Tuesday afternoon, my heart sank—much like Elisha’s servant’s heart did when their city of Dothan was surrounded by enemy horses and chariots. At this point, he said, “Alas, my master! How shall we do?” (II Kings 6:15, B9) I too felt surrounded by unbeatable foes when I read over every exam questions which was asking me to compare and contrast several books that I had intended to read over the weekend but had not read because of the time that I needed to spend in the Reading Room to have my healing.
At first, I was seriously tempted to just go up to the exam proctor and turn in an unanswered exam with a note that I’d had a severe health challenge over the weekend and was unable to adequately prepare for it. I even thought at that point about asking to take this sociology course on a Pass-Fail basis so that my B+ grade going into this final could at least earn me a "Pass" on my transcript for the course.
As I started to stand up to walk up to the exam proctor and to humanly give up, rather than to try to make up answers about books that I had not even read, an angel message from God stopped me. It said: “Look up to Me! I am the same Mind that made this test and that knows all—certainly about every book. I am with you now, and always, to tell you everything you need to know.”
I gained a peaceful confidence from this message and from remembering other promises from the Bible lesson that I’d cherished and made my own during my healing hours in the Reading Room. I felt stress-free — as merely a reflection who didn’t need to originate anything! It really felt like divine Mind was actually taking this final for me! Here are some other lessons of the Comforter from Science and Health that I had cherished during my Reading Room study that poured into thought to encourage and bless me big-time.
“When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible.” (S180:25-27, S10)
“It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future. Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind… to be divinely inspired, yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.” (84:11-18, S11)
“A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.” (128:14)
“This (spiritual) understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments, it is the reality of all things brought to light.” (505:26-28)
A joyous, confident motive to glorify God filled me with a desire to be a clear transparency, a scribe under orders. I was determined not to try myself to make up what I humanly didn’t know, but rather to merely make welcome all right ideas. They flowed into thought and I effortlessly wrote them down. At the end of the allotted three hours I handed in the exam with a sense of awe, joy and stress-free peace. It was for me “a foretaste of eternity” that Mary Baker Eddy describes in Science and Health: “One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity.” (p. 598:23, S27)
The next day to complete my sense of awe about this demonstration of divine Mind’s omniscience and glory, I went back to the hallway outside the exam room where the grades were posted on a bulletin board. Next to my name was an A! All glory be to God alone for “Acing” that final exam for me on books I’d never even read! And, for improving my overall grade in the course.
Since “Impossibilities never occur” (245:27), such a satisfying and tasty “foretaste of eternity” is immanently possible to us all. A major theme of Christianity, of the Sixth Tenet of Christian Science (497:24) and of this week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson is “to be spiritually minded,” [Romans 8:6 (B17), SH 95: 5 (S28)] — having “the mind of Christ.” [I Cor. 2:16 (GT, B14), 467:13 (S5)]. It foreshadows what amazing good is possible to you when even “one moment of divine consciousness… (is) obtained and retained when the science of being is understood…” [598:23, (S27)]. What cannot God, good do for you too when you, like Joseph, Elias and Jesus, know that “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30) and that “it is not in me. God shall give (me every) … answer” that I need, and I know it! (Genesis 41:16)
[This is a 2nd draft of a testimony that I plan to send into the Christian Science periodicals.]
GEM#7: Exercise your dominion to show forth your perfection for all to see!
Cobbey Crisler on Jesus healing the withered hand in Luke 6:6-19 (B13) (& Mark 3:1-5)
[Cobbey:] “In Mark 3, Verse 1, [and Luke 6:6-10] we have a renewed definition for church where another healing occurs in the church context, namely, ‘the man that had the withered hand.’… According to an earlier, largely lost gospel called the Gospel of Hebrews, we find this man saying to Jesus, “I was a mason seeking a livelihood with my hands. I pray thee, Jesus, to restore me my health that I may not beg meanly for my food.’
According to Luke 6:6, it was his right hand that was withered. [W: shrunken, lacking fullness, dominion, ability to function…] As a mason, you could not really pursue your craft. If that is an authentic recollection, it just adds a little more enrichment to our comprehension of the story. Again, it’s the Sabbath and we find that prayer is a church activity. It would be hard to find someone that would disagree with that no matter what denomination one belongs to. Healing would have to take place, because prayer is no idle exercise without results. Healing follows prayer.”
Verse 3. Jesus stops the order of service (again). He says to the man with the withered hand, ‘Stand forth.’ Would that electrify most congregational worship today? ‘Stand forth.’ Everything stops. The priority is here.
Verse 4. Then he asks the question, ‘Is it lawful,’ is it a church rule, ‘to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil?’ Notice his definition of ‘doing-good’ here. He must not remain on the surface. Doing-good for Jesus would be what? Healing the man. Doing-evil would be what? Not healing the man. He regarded not-healing as evil. The normality of the spiritual function of healing is underscored here…
Verse 5. Then he says, ‘Stretch forth thine hand.’ Why didn’t he go and stretch it forth for him? Again, the consistency of having dominion. Dominion doesn’t exercise you, does it? You exercise it… ‘Stretch forth thine hand and it was restored whole.’ This stone mason no doubt could earn a living again using his hands.”
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
GEM #8: Radiate your undying identity that’s forever loved and blessed by your heavenly Daddy (Abba)!
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 17.1-9 (B15) and Jesus, Moses & Elias on the Mt. of Transfiguration
“Chapter 17: There is a renewed opportunity for the disciples, three of them at least, to witness who Jesus was.
(Verse 1). "Peter, James, and John come to a high mountain apart,"
(Verse 2). "He was transfigured: his face did shine,"
(Verse 3). And there is a breakthrough here because "we find Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus." What is special about that is Moses really is the prime figure in the law, isn't he? Elias is the prime figure in the prophets. So, in a way, it represents the three major sections of the Bible, long before it was sewn together in the backbone of a book.
We know what they were talking about, at least. The gospel of Luke (9:31) is the only one which tells us what the subject of conversation was on the Mount of Transfiguration. Luke tells us that they were discussing his "decease" which was forthcoming in Jerusalem. When J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-67, U.S. nuclear physicist) wanted to talk with someone on his level, he probably wouldn't give us a call. He'd go to look for Einstein.
If Jesus were approaching his meeting with the last enemy known as death, just look at Moses and Elias. What had Elias or Elijah accomplished? He had ascended, according to the Old Testament report 2 Kings 2:11. What about Moses? It doesn't say exactly, but they never could find his body. They sent out expedition after expedition that came up empty handed. In fact, there is the intertestamental (the period between the close of the OLD TESTAMENT and the beginning of the NEW TESTAMENT) literature written called "The Assumption of Moses" where it has long been held in Jewish tradition that Moses had ascended. There is this common point of unity among those three men on that mountain.
Verse 9 (of Matthew 17). Our translation says, "Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead." I can't find a Greek version that supports the word "again." But if it is genuine, it implies that, in effect, Jesus had to rise from the dead to communicate to these men. He had to have overcome the death barrier.
The three disciples didn't communicate with them, but they knew who they were. Isn't that interesting? That says something about identity, our identity. The identity of Moses and Elias was apparently communicable. But there was no discussion back and forth between Peter, James, and John and those on the mountain. It's sort of like television, isn't it? You can tune in at a distance. You can see people on the screen who are thousands of miles from you. Maybe even bouncing off satellites. But you can't communicate with them. Distance and time have been overcome and we can see but not communicate.
(Verse 4). They were bored there, Peter, James, and John. Peter tries to interrupt. Peter liked to feel busy. On the top of the mountain Jesus, Moses, and Elias had their thing going. So, he said, "It's good for us to be here." Really, the transfiguration didn't need Peter's endorsement. But he gave it. He said, 'It's good for us to be here. While you're up there, why don't we do something down here, instead of just sitting. We can build three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias."
Verse 5 is when the announcement comes once again very much like the baptism (Matthew 3:17) which is rooted in prophecy. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax-Collectors Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
