GEMs of REMEDIES for the FABLES of “Adam & Fallen Man” found in “Jesus & Unfallen Man”
Saturday, October 28th, 2023
By Warren Huff (with insights from Cobbey Crisler)
GEMs of REMEDIES for the FABLES of “Adam & Fallen Man”
given by “Christ Jesus & Unfallen Man”
GEMs = God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you to sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler & others as inspired by God and
The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Adam and Fallen Man”
for Sunday, November 5, 2023
(Cobbey’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps• 314-378-2574
LET GOD’S EXAMINATION QUESTIONS for Job & us, INSPIRE US to CLAIM OUR UNFALLEN STATUS AS DOMINION MAN THAT GOD is the FIRST to INTRODUCE in GENESIS 1:26/Resp. Reading) –Cobbey Crisler on Job 38:1-10, 33-36 (Golden Text)
[Cobbey Crisler on “the divine speeches” in the closing the chapters of Job:] “The thing we see in Elihu’s testimony is what we see in the three friends earlier. There are some wonderful statements, beautiful statements, and there are also the reverse. You have that to-and-fro mixture in the testimony of all four “friends,” if we can add them together.
In Job 36:2 [Elihu] says, “[I have} yet to speak on God’s behalf.” Even though he’s done a lot of talking up to this point, apparently he feels he hasn’t convinced Job.
Elihu disappears at the end of Chapter 37. We get down to the real dialogue that we’ve all been waiting for.
Chapter 38 is the examination, the only examination higher than a self-examination. That is what? God’s examination of us.
In Job 38:1 we find “the LORD answering Job out of the whirlwind.” What’s the whirlwind? It’s a beautiful example of to-and-fro and what’s been going on in Job’s thought all the way up to this point.
This chapter is one series of questions. Once again you can wonder how does God communicate to man?
Here [in] chapter 38 it tells us by question which requires an answer from us. That’s rather interesting, isn’t it?
A question requires an answer from Job.
[Job 38:2] “Who [is] this that darkeneth counsel by word, without knowledge?”
We have to answer that question. To fulfill communication. God makes demands on us and we are expected to fulfill those demands, and that’s our relationship with God.
Look how Jesus applied that when he healed his cases and man was equipped to respond.
In Job 38:3 look at the authoritative statement which sounds like so many of the statements Jesus made when he healed. “Gird up now thy loins like a man:” What did Job look like down there on all fours on the ash heap’?
Like an animal. “Gird up your loins like a man; Get into your manhood.
“I will demand of thee and answer thou me.” ** [See P.S.
Now, back to the last chapter of Job and we’ll see what occurs [there]
In Job 42:2 Job says, “I know that you can do every [thing}, and no thought can be withholden from thee.”
Job 42:5 says. “I’ve heard of thee by the hearing the ear: Guess what “My eye sees You.” Not just a rumor that God is around, but what else?
[Voice: The healing.”] The evidence of God’s presence being in his healing.
- ·Deck thyself [with] glory and majesty and beauty” [Job 40:10].
In Job he says something that sounds like you’re sorry he says it.
Wherefore I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes.” But notice what’s in italics/brackets there. [Voice: “It’s not in the original.”] Alright. Remember that “repent” really conveys what? [Voice: “Change your concept.”] Changing your concept. Now read it this way. “Wherefore I abhor and change my concept about dust and ashes.” ···
In Job 42:7 we’re introduced to the three friends again. Elihu never appears.
What are the three “friends” doing? We’re told that God says. “they have not spoken of Me what was right, ” incorrect false theology, in other words. You know what they’re still doing?
[In Job 42:8] they’re out making burnt offerings. That’s where we ran into Job. Way back in that primitive concept of worship [Job 1:5].
…But Job isn’t making burnt offerings anymore. In fact, God says for Job to pray for his ‘friends” and Job is now “praying,” a word which was not used when we first met Job. He was making a burnt offering.
So, in Job 42: 10 we’re told that “the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: and he received twice as much as he had before” You remember Jesus parable [Matthew 7:24-27] of the house built on a rock and the house built on sand? Everything is the same in that parable except the results, and where the house was built. Rock or sand? Had Job all the wealth, all those possessions, everything before, but built on what he thought maybe was a self-made foundation? Which turned out to be sand.
Now look. Everything he had doubled! But perhaps built on a right concept of where it comes from.”
… “Finally, Job 38:33 requiring man thought to get to what level? Look at the demand and question in this verse. Do you know the ordinances of heaven? Do you know the laws of heaven? We have to answer that. Do we? Because if our answer is “Yes,” look at the next one. Can you set that very same dominion on the earth? Can you exercise that dominion in heaven? What does the Lord’s Prayer (in Matthew 6:10) say? “Thy kingdom come” where? “Thy will be done” where?
Taking that heavenly law and exercising it on earth, God is suggesting to man, not suggesting but inspiring, man, with His concept of dominion here in Genesis 1 (verse 26). Isn’t it appropriate that God is the first to introduce that dominion?”
“The Case of Job,” by B. Cobbey Crisler
**P.S. For insights on the Golden Text from Job, click HERE for a shared link to the full, classic article by Violet Hay (excerpted below) from the May 14, 1955 Christian Science Sentinel: “The Bible records that out of the whirlwind Job heard the voice of God saying to him (Job 38:3, 4): “I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.” Is not this divine demand uttering itself to us today, asking for a right understanding and acknowledgment of our pre-existence and coexistence with our Maker?
“As all that is implied in this demand unfolds to our thought, we shall find ourselves able to reply understandingly to that momentous question, “Where wast thou?” with joyous conviction (Job 38:7), ” ‘When the morning stars sang 🎹 🎶 together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,’ I was there.”
“Lord, “I was there”!”
FIND YOUR DOMINION-MAN HEALING IN A SIMPLE POEM
THAT DEBUNKS THE FABLE OF YOUR DUST-MAN ORIGIN!
(attached online as Download page with a testimony for reprinting)
GENESIS 1 OR GENESIS 2?
By Woodruff Smith
Where did it begin this idea called you?
In Genesis 1, or Genesis 2?
Which one of these concepts
Will prove to be true?
If you know what is what,
Do you know who is who?
In Genesis 1 in the 26th verse
There’s a man with never a taint’ of a curse.
But in Genesis 2 in verse number seven
There’s a dust man conceived…
He’ll never see heaven.
So, it really comes down
To which one you will claim,
What thou see’st thou be’st…
So, what is your name?
There they both stand.
Which one is you?
Is it immortal man one,
Or mortal man two?
If you’re immortal man
You know what you’re worth.
For according to law
You’ll inherit the earth.
But if you’re just a mortal
And made out of dust…
Is there anything to you
That’s worthy of trust?
No, the thing they call man
In Genesis 2
Is the dream of the dreamer.
It never was you.
So, know what you are.
Take your place in the sun,
You’re the immortal man
Of Genesis 1.
WELCOME the WOW of being TRANSFORMED from feeling like a hostage or exile with very bad aloneness to feeling the very good, ALL-Oneness of spiritual togetherness 🎹 🎶and baptism! — [from W’s notes on Cobbey Crisler talks on Genesis 1 (Responsive Reading, & citation S1/502:22; cit. S2/346:2; it. S3/262:27-28):
[Cobbey:] “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 the nothingness of the 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 further refined 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)
CHOOSE WHOLENESS over “HALF-NESS”! FIND SATISFACTION, NOT in a PHYSICAL, MALE-FEMALE UNION, BUT ONLY in OUR ORIGINAL, SPIRITUAL INDIVISIBILITY from God! Cobbey Crisler insights on Genesis 1:27, 31 (Resp. Reading):
[Cobbey :] “Genesis 1, 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 a physical union —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 & Health, p. 241:8).
(Transcribed from notes taken during Cobbey Crisler talks by Warren Huff in the margins of his Bible)
To REVERSE the ADAM CURSE, Jesus OVERCAME Adam’s ORIGINAL SIN of disobedient self-will. Cobbey Crisler insights on Genesis chapters 1, 2 & 3 and on choosing to awake to salvation in Christ.
[Cobbey:] “Can we change choices if we have made the wrong ones?
Do you find the Bible filled with this choice-making? How does it open, for instance?
“Genesis 1 (Responsive Reading) & Genesis 2 & 3 (citations B4, B5, & cits. S4/470:18; S5/523/14-17; S6/522:5-10; S7/214:9-10) are clearly a choice, aren’t they? They contradict each other. We really cannot live with both although most of us are undoubtedly trying. The necessity to make a decision, important decision, relates back to how the pioneer Christian made his decision. Whether he himself has that rock beneath him, as we said, before he made any rules. Or, whether he, too, vacillated and was dualistic, and was pulled to and fro, according to the motion of Satan in the Book of Job.
… “Jesus found what humanhood could be when the Divine was behind it every step of the way. There is nothing in Jesus’ humanhood that could stop the Divine from manifesting itself on earth as in heaven. This may be our decision we’re talking about.
“Jesus refused to allow anything to obstruct the divine will from operating on earth. Look what he was able to do with his own humanhood as well as with the humanhood of others as a result. He could take his fragile, one would think, human frame, anatomically speaking, through what was apparently at least the sound barrier, if not the light barrier. In no way did his body hamper him when he walked above the water.
“He therefore had dominion, obviously, over what we call a law of gravity. Yet when he subdued gravity through this sense of dominion, gravity had no control over the dominion-man. Notice he was not like our astronauts, weightless as the result of negating gravity. He was still in absolute control of every aspect of his being and progressing toward his destination. He didn’t have to do it step-by-step because we hear that when he set foot in the boat instantly, not only Jesus, but the comprehension of Jesus could embrace his disciples plus boat, and get all of them through what we feel today, technologically would require heat-resistant metal, crash helmets, oxygen masks, or whatever else in order to preserve the human frame, and to get it through such stresses and pressures and tensions. Jesus was used to the pressure of Gethsemane, the olive press. He did not fear what flesh could do to him, obviously…
… “If our thesis as presented is accurate, that the implication of Paul’s statement [I Corinthians 15:22, 47/cit. B6/Science & Health 545:31] “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” presents problem and solution, or remedy, then one of the greatest research jobs awaiting all of us is to get back into that problem called Adam which we’re all wrestling with.
“Just make a list of everything you detect that Adam did wrong mentally and physically. Because, if it is true that Jesus’ mission was to remedy the Adam man and wipe that alternative off the face of man’s consciousness, then everything that Adam did wrong which was upside down Jesus is going to put right side up and prove that man is upright. Many things may occur to you, for instance in the initial phases of such a list which we could just touch upon. Adam’s problem occurred in what environment? The Garden of Eden. Where did Jesus face down and confront that Adam-problem? The Garden of Gethsemane. Is this a coincidence? Is Gethsemane intended to be the remedy for the problems of Eden in our own thinking? I love in that context to remember Isaiah’s words [Isaiah 1:29] when he says, “Ye shall be confounded for the gardens ye have chosen.” Eden, Gethsemane.
… “Adam’s problem, though, is probably symbolized most graphically by what? He had been told not to do something, what was it? “Not to eat of that tree” [Genesis 3:3]. Instead he went and did it. The disobedience, doing one’s own will, would have to be totally remedied right up with the same even greater peak pressure on a humanhood that had just announced to the world that the way to get out of this Adam-mess is to yield to God’s will regardless of the pressure upon you, so [it’s] doing God’s will versus doing one’s own will.
“The tree of knowledge of good and evil. You know that the New Testament refers several times to the cross as the tree, that they nailed Jesus to the tree [Acts 13:29; 1 Peter 2:24]. Interesting symbolism. The attempt to nail Jesus as if he were one more in the dying race of Adam, to be nailed to death, and that’s the termination and the end of anything that he would offer man radically as salvation. Jesus could not be nailed on the cross any more than God’s man could be nailed on the cross, and thus his theology was exemplified.
“Do you remember, – just things like this to show you how much fun this work can be as well – part of the curse on Adam [Genesis 3:17, 18 (cit, B5)] was that thorns will be brought forth unto him. Did Jesus have to face Adam’s thorns on that weekend? “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread…dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return” [Genesis 3:19]. The grave was the pressure of the dust he was to return to. There are many others showing the complete reversal of the Adam [curse]. It’s as if the highest sense of mind on earth, which had relinquished its right to mind except by reflection, is turning everything right-side-up just as we do visually. That topic is far from being exhausted. In fact, what can exhaust an infinite reservoir? It’s one thing about supply in the Bible. It’s never consumed. Therefore, there are no consumers…
“We’re going to review the actual events of the Gethsemane experience and see some of the differences. What Jesus faced, what he was remedying, why he was there and see that we must, just for gratitude’s sake alone, have a stake in that Gethsemane, pioneer work. But then we must take it beyond this. We must go and do likewise.
“Matthew 26:30 “When they had sung an hymn 🎶, they went out into the mount of Olives.” A hymn sing [like at CedarS] before Gethsemane [– “the human yielding to the divine…” (SH 586:23)]. That shows the value Jesus places on such an uplifting of thought through the conjoining of music 🎹 🎶and words. The meaning that is often conveyed even more deeply to us when we have that unity of soul expressed by thought in that manner. ** …
Matthew 26:39 “Jesus then goes away about a stone’s cast,” further spiritual distance from his disciples, perhaps, and his prayer, the Gethsemane decision, “Saying, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless” make no mistake where my commitment is, “not as I will.” He told us that was his mission, not to do his own will but to do his Father’s will. If Gethsemane had broken him, where would we be? “Not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Is that Jesus overcoming the original sin of Adam?”
… “Let’s now turn to Mark’s version of the event. Something no other Gospel records.
“Mark 14:36 “Jesus says, Abba, Father, all things [are] possible unto thee.” He’s praying his own Lord’s Prayer, showing that this is not a prayer that he doesn’t participate in himself. “Abba,” as some of you may know if behind every use of Jesus’ word “Father” in the gospels. “Abba” is the Aramaic word. No other religious thinker or writer before his time had ever used “Abba” for God. “Abba” is a child’s word. It is “Daddy.” It’s one of the first two words that a Hebrew and an Arab child learns today. “Abba, Imma [Daddy, Mama or Mommy]”
“When he told us we could not enter in to the kingdom of heaven without becoming as a little child, he obviously meant we cannot say the Lord’s Prayer effectively without becoming a little child. It’s an infant’s reliance on God and Jesus goes to his Father as a little child in Gethsemane. When we’re making our Gethsemane decisions, we had better follow the example and remember “Abba,”
… “Let’s go to Luke’s version.
“Luke 22:42 Luke tells us a few other things. As a matter of fact, [this is] probably the most well known expression of the Gethsemane Decision where Jesus says, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Remember if the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer is recalled by “Abba,” Our Father, “Abba” being the original behind it.
“[Luke 11:1,2] Look at “Thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer. Why is it there? The prayer that Jesus himself gave us in response to the question, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
“[Matthew 6:9] “After this manner therefore pray ye.” “Abba.” Immediately be a little child and be sure you’re committed to God’s will being done.
“Look at that discipline requiring human thought to conform and yield to the divine when all outlines and barriers around mentality as we have become accustomed to it fall away and we find no limitations to thought or mind at all if we are the image of the mind of God. “Not my will be thine be done” is Jesus using his own prayer in Gethsemane. If that Lord’s Prayer can carry one through Gethsemane, it can carry one through anything. …
“Gethsemane is the press, the oil press. Like Jesus, we must have oil within us. The pressure is still on. If Gethsemane is the press, can we say and be backed up by Scripture, that not my will but thine be done is the oil? If so, that’s the Christ-oil. The word Christ is based upon the Greek word for oil. That’s what poured out of Jesus’ experience at Gethsemane. What is it designed to do? To anoint, to heal, to feed, to cleanse. If the pressure of Gethsemane is upon us, what is oil designed to do? Do we find in our character anything unlike that Christ-anointed example? Is that human will that needs to be crushed out forever?
“We think we’re in an oil crisis today. The pressure is on. But Gethsemane’s purpose has a divine result regardless of what the world can bring to bear upon you and me, Jesus could say in part of that hymn that he sang before Gethsemane which is locatable in the later psalms, is still sung today at Passover, that he needed not to fear what man or flesh could do. Out of that experience flowed the oil that is still blessing us, is still being utilized. We’re not in an oil crisis today if we’re in the way with Jesus. We maybe at a “parting of the ways,” the meaning of the word crisis. We may be challenged regularly and often to make our right decisions, our right choice, our Gethsemane decision.
“Then, the result of no longer bowing down to a human will, no longer seeing within us any domination by others through their human will, but filled with the Holy Ghost’s own message, the angel that strengthens Jesus at that moment, according to Luke. That angel awaits to strengthen us today.”
“The Gethsemane Decision,” a talk by B. Cobbey Crisler**
REJOICE TO DENY and EXPUNGE FROM YOUR PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE FAILED FABLES & MYTHICAL MIST-TAKES MADE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN! —
The “woman with a crown (corona) of twelve stars” versus a great red dragon …
with seven crowns upon his heads” –
Click on full, online insights by Cobbey Crisler on Genesis 3 (cit. B5) for more on womanhood’s role in REVERSING (not rehearsing) the CURSES on Eve & womanhood as prophesied in Revelation 12.
DISCOVER INDESCRIBABLE JOY in LIVING the RULES of HEAVENLY HAPPINESS as JESUS SHARED THEM from the ALTITUDE of INSPIRATION in HIS SERMON on the MOUNT. Cobbey on Jesus’ mandate (Mt. 5:48/cit. B8) of being PERFECT like God
[Cobbey Crisler:] “Chapter five is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount which goes all the way through to the end of Chapter 7. Whether Jesus delivered all these statements at once is a matter of conjecture. No other gospel has it treated as kind of an anthology of Jesus’ statements. Whether he even delivered the Sermon on a Mount, or not, is a matter of dispute because Luke (6:12) says he spent the night before on the mountain, but came down to the plain the next day (Luke 6:17) and delivered this sermon.
“So, it must not be the geographical point that’s important. The sermon has to be on a mount is one way of looking at it. That’s what? From the altitude of inspiration from which Jesus delivered this magnificent sermon, sometimes called the “Diamond Sermon.”
… “(Matthew 5, Verse 48/cit. B8). Jesus’ final summary … “We should be perfect,” he said. According to what measurement? How does he regard when he got the revelation from God that Jesus was the Son of God? Did that mean for Jesus that he was the only Son of God? Notice the same relationship goes beyond, to us. Because he said it’s a mandate, “Be ye therefore perfect.” Why? “Even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” If the original is perfect, the image must be.
Again, we can compare how Moses viewed this. He had somewhat the same to say. But he didn’t say it in the strength of the present tense that Jesus did. In fact, in Deuteronomy 18, (Verse 13), Moses is recorded as saying, “Thou shalt be perfect before the Lord thy God.” Same point but different tense. Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect.”
“The Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax-Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
TURN FROM THE SWINISH TO FACE YOUR FATHER & YOUR TRUE SPIRITUAL IDENTITY! Cobbey on Luke 15:11-24/cit. B10 & Prodigal insights by Christie on Chet’s chickens
[Cobbey Crisler:] “Psalm 30:2 Again, the appointment with the physician, the Great Physician, in the Bible is very often this, “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee.” It does not take our being attuned to God to make the appointment. Just as the Prodigal Son suddenly decided that his real right place was not in that pig pen when he came to himself [Luke 15: 16-18]. There’s a whole new view of one’s identity. He decided that his father’s house held much more. Then, you notice the father did not go to the man with the swine to save the son. The son had to do something. Then, the father ran to meet him as he was coming [Luke 15:20]. With your back to the Father, you’re not even heading in that direction.
With your face toward the Father you’re looking at the Father’s face, which is part of the cure biblically, [that] is to see the divine nature. Then, of course, you want to be nearer the source of your nature. Step by step the light grows brighter around your feet. We know where we’re heading. We may not have arrived yet, but it’s getting brighter, and lighter, and our problems are dropping away, our burdens, and the divine nature is becoming applicable nearer and nearer. “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee; you have healed me.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
**A Link between Chet’s Chickens & the Prodigal Son parable**
[Here’s a fun, Christie Hanzlik illustration from Section 3 of a past Bible Lesson & CedarS Met:]
[Christie wrote:] “Section 3 uses Christ Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son returning to the forgiving father to illustrate the tender relationship between God and man. And it also includes the part about the older brother being upset by the father (God) bestowing gifts on the younger son, who had been so wasteful and sinful, when the older brother had been so faithful all along & got nothing. (cit. B10, Luke 15:1-24+)
[Christie continues:] “The “Bible Lens Research” in the Christian Science Sentinel explains, “Scholars view the elder son as symbolic of the Pharisees—self-righteous, prideful, and unwilling to welcome a repentant transgressor. Regardless of this attitude, his father addresses him as ‘son,’ reassuring him of his uninterrupted status in the family. One Bible expert suggests, ‘If repentance for the prodigal son means learning to say ‘Father’ again, then for the elder son it means learning to say ‘brother’ again.’ … Another source observes: “The parable is open-ended: it does not record the older brother’s response. The religious leaders still had a chance to respond to Jesus’ offer of the Kingdom.”
“I have never before noticed Christ Jesus left the parable open-ended…we never hear what the older son decides to do. We don’t know whether the elder brother continues to be upset, or whether he welcomes his brother home. This open-ended question leads me to pray about the “older-brother tendency” that seems to tempt each of us. It occurs to me that we overcome the “older-brother tendency” for all mankind as we realize that divine Love is infinite and has infinite resources and that each of us cannot help but to hear the Christ-message that makes us aware of our infinite source of goodness.
[Christie:] “This reminds me of a story I heard from Chet Manchester, CSB. Years ago, Chet and his wife Anne began to raise chickens on their property in New York. Chet went out to feed the chickens with a huge bag of feed one day and was struck by how the chickens were all fighting with each other to get to the food. He found himself saying, “Silly chickens, if you only knew how much food I have to give you and how willing I am to give it all to you, you would not fight with each other.” This message, of course, is one that all of us can digest. If we understand that our divine Parent, infinite Love, has infinite resources and an unlimited metaphorical food bag, we would not compare or criticize or argue with one another. We would not stress out over getting enough affection. This lesson from Chet’s chickens can help us all to realize that we are all worthy of love and have an unlimited source of love openly willing to give us as much as we need.
“Chet’s chickens afford us many lessons. As Mary Baker Eddy asks rhetorically, “Shall we plead for more at the open fount [also known as unlimited chicken feed], which is pouring forth more than we accept? The unspoken desire does bring us nearer the source of all existence and blessedness [the source of all chicken food].” (S&H 2:26)
She continues, “Through repentance, spiritual baptism, and regeneration, [silly chickens] put off their [limited] beliefs and false individuality [that makes them think they have to fight for everything they get].
“In patient obedience to a patient [supplier of infinite blessings], let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is [what seems to make us feel separate and afraid].” (cit. 16, 242:1–3, 15 bracketed phrases added)
“I hope you can forgive my campiness in mixing the chicken metaphor into Mary Baker Eddy’s writings. In my experience, hearing familiar writings in startling ways, often stirs thought and leads to healing and awakening, plus it’s fun.
“As we understand more about our infinite source of goodness, we discover more and more peace and fulfillment. We are not separate from the supply, or separate from the source of all goodness. The prodigal son story helps us to understand the tender relationship between God and man, that God is always forgiving and always welcomes us home.
“And yet, we must remember that, in truth, we are never separated from God, never separated from the Father. We cannot actually wander away from ever-present and omniscient Mind. We cannot actually step away from God’s presence even for a single moment because God–infinite Love–is ever-present. Man is the entity of God, the very expression and outpouring of God. As Mary Baker Eddy states. “The admission to one’s self that man is God’s own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea.” (S&H, 90:24-25)”
DISCOVER INDESCRIBABLE JOY in LIVING the RULES of HEAVENLY HAPPINESS as JESUS SHARED THEM from the ALTITUDE of INSPIRATION IN HIS SERMON on the MOUNT. Cobbey on Jesus’ mandate (Mt 5:48/cit. B8 to be PERFECT like God.
[Cobbey Crisler:] “Chapter five is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount which goes all the way through to the end of Chapter 7. Whether Jesus delivered all these statements at once is a matter of conjecture. No other gospel has it treated as kind of an anthology of Jesus’ statements. Whether he even delivered the Sermon on a Mount, or not, is a matter of dispute because Luke (6:12) says he spent the night before on the mountain, but came down to the plain the next day (Luke 6:17) and delivered this sermon.
So, it must not be the geographical point that’s important. The sermon has to be on a mount is one way of looking at it. That’s what? From the altitude of inspiration from which Jesus delivered this magnificent sermon, sometimes called the “Diamond Sermon.”
… (Matthew 5, Verse 48/Cit. B8). Jesus’ final summary … “We should be perfect,” he said. According to what measurement? How does he regard when he got the revelation from God that Jesus was the Son of God? Did that mean for Jesus that he was the only Son of God? Notice the same relationship goes beyond, to us. Because he said it’s a mandate, “Be ye therefore perfect.” Why? “Even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” If the original is perfect, the image must be.
Again, we can compare how Moses viewed this. He had somewhat the same to say. But he didn’t say it in the strength of the present tense that Jesus did. In fact, in Deuteronomy 18, (Verse 13), Moses is recorded as saying, “Thou shalt be perfect before the Lord thy God.” Same point but different tense. Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect.”
“The Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax-Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
P.S. [W:] As Mary Baker Eddy says: “The true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection. Understanding this, Jesus said: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (cit. S11/259:15)
SEE EVERY ILL CURED BY GOD’S ORDERED GOVERNMENT OF
HARMONY 🎹 🎶 AT HAND! Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 4:23/cit. B14:
Verse 23. And “healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” Here are human problems that had defied solution, and Jesus solved them all based on his concept of theology, namely the kingdom. Remember a kingdom is not chaos. It’s an ordered government of heaven and harmony at hand.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
STRIVE TO “TOUCH THE FRINGES OF ETERNITY” (Hymn 64:3) TO FIND PERFECT WHOLENESS WITHIN YOU! Cobbey on Mt. 9:20-22/cit. B15 (& Mark 5:25-42) for an issue of blood healed
Click on the link below to see a helpful video reenactment of
this Christian healing meant for you too! eal longtime “issues” Reach out to “touch the fringes of eternity” (Hymn 64) as in a Mark 5:28 reenactment
[Cobbey Crisler:] “A woman, hemorrhaging 12 years, was healed by touching the “wings” of Jesus’ garment. (Cobbey Crisler (CC) on the version in Luke 8:41) “The woman… is at the absolute desperate end of a rope. Here we find receptivity. Blessed are those are in this state. Happy are those because this state of mind can be changed. “This radical change of thought was in the presence of the Christ-correction that Jesus was exercising in the mental realm. It’s going to be sufficient and the woman feels that it will help her. She’s lost all her money on physicians. [No health insurance…] Mark even tells us that she’s worse because of that choice. [Mark 5:26] All she does is touch the border of his garment. The issue of blood, the continuous hemorrhaging, had occurred for twelve years, had kept her out of the temple, kept her out of worship and made her as unclean as the lepers, …
(CC on version in Mark 5:34) Verse 34. Jesus calls the woman, “Daughter.”… Jesus is using daughter in an entirely new way… The woman’s problem is blood. He even lifts the term “daughter” out of a blood relationship and defines a divine relationship… The dignity of womanhood is demonstrated.”
(CC on version in Luke 8:48) “Daughter, be of good comfort” (Verse 48). Look at how he’s addressing the thought of that woman. Not only the precious relationship to God, but the comfort. She hasn’t experienced that in twelve years. She’d lost all her money. She was about to be thrown on the society. There was nowhere to go when you were thrown on society. That may have happened to the woman who had been a sinner. Prostitution was the only open career for many women when they were simply thrown out and discarded from normal humanity…
“Jesus refuses to allow that woman to walk away from the scene thinking that physical contact with his robe had anything to do with the healing. He says, again, “Your faith hath made you whole.” The word “whole” and the word “heal” in Anglo-Saxon have the identical root. It implies that disease is something less than wholeness, that it is a fragmentation of our being. Healing is the condition of being made whole.”
“What Mark Recorded” and “Luke the Researcher,” both by B. Cobbey Crisler**
P.S. Warren’s ADDED BACKGROUND NOTE, THAT RELATES to APPLYING the 10 Commandments GEM ABOVE:
[W.] “In Numbers 15:38-40, God tells Moses to have Hebrew men attach fringes to the border, or wings, of their prayer shawl garments —like the one pictured in a Download in the online version of these GEMs —to remind them to abide by God’s Ten Commandments (See GEM on 1st and all Commandments) and to ‘be holy unto your God’ (Numbers 15:40). The woman healed of her 12-year issue was rewarded for exercising her faith that Christ Jesus was fulfilling this prophesy in Malachi: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; (Malachi 4:2). Many others in Jesus day were also rewarded for exercising their faith in Jesus being the fulfillment of the scriptural promise of the healing power connected to the keeping of God’s law represented by the 10 Commandment fringes on the borders of his garment… Mark 6:56 records of Christ Jesus’ healing that “whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.” (or “perfectly whole” in the account in Matthew 14:36) Here’s to perfect wholeness for you in your faithfully following of the science of the Christ and in fulfilling God’s laws. See more background info at:
- https://jewsforjesus.org/learn/the-tallit-and-tzitzit and
- https://khollandsblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/devotional-healing-in-his-wings/
AN APPLICATION GEM TO CHERISH AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY MAKE YOUR OWN!
WAKE-UP & CHANGE YOUR Genesis to “yield to the harmony of divine Mind.” (citation S20, 162) with “NO opposing element” (My. 292, see P.S.) Welcome to YOUR BODY the INVIGORATING & PURIFYING “sunlight of Truth” (162)
Affirm: “Christian Science brings to the (my) body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies … The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, revive) the (my) human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point, Genesis), on which it may yield to (concede to, give acknowledgement to, admit to, forfeit to, surrender to, hail to) the harmony of the divine Mind.” (S&H 162:4-5, 9/citation S20).
These sentences begin & end a paragraph I’ll always treasure because it helped save my life!!
That’s why I always share my gratitude for it whenever any part of it is in the Bible Lesson. You can read about my 2008 healing of a large, cancerous growth thanks to a healing hymn sing 🎹 🎶 and my in-depth, follow-up applications of this full, powerful paragraph – word by specific, healing word and its synonyms:
“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, revive) the human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point), on which it may yield to (concede to, give acknowledgement to, admit to, forfeit to, surrender to, hail to) the harmony of the divine Mind.” (S&H 162:9, citation S24).
P.S. “YIELD to the HARMONY 🎹 🎶 of divine Mind” (162) with **“NO opposing element” (My. 292) and “so far above all mortal strife, or cruel creed, or earthborn taint, fill(ed)… today with all Thou art…” (Hymn 23)
**Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “My answer to the inquiry, “Why did Christians of every sect in the United States fail in their prayers to save the life of President McKinley,” is briefly this: Insufficient faith or spiritual understanding, and a compound of prayers in which one earnest, tender desire works unconsciously against the modus operandi of another, would prevent the result desired. …
“These conflicting states of the human mind, of trembling faith, hope, and of fear, evinced a lack of the absolute understanding of God’s omnipotence, and thus they prevented the power of absolute Truth from reassuring the mind and through the mind resuscitating the body of the patient.
“The divine power and poor human sense — yea, the spirit and the flesh — struggled, and to mortal sense the flesh prevailed. Had prayer so fervently offered possessed no opposing element, and President McKinley’s recovery been regarded as wholly contingent on the power of God, — on the power of divine Love to overrule the purposes of hate and the law of Spirit to control matter, — the result would have been scientific, and the patient would have recovered. …
“In a certain city the Master “did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief,” — because of the mental counteracting elements, the startled or the unrighteous contradicting minds of mortals. And if he were personally with us to-day, he would rebuke whatever accords not with a full faith and spiritual knowledge of God. He would mightily rebuke a single doubt of the ever-present power of divine Spirit to control all the conditions of man and the universe.”
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 292:13–294:15) Claim
Cherish being “governed by… the ever-present Mind who understands all things… (&) “KNOW THAT WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE” (cit. S26/180:25).
Be open to your ability to always answer every question rightly as the reflection of “the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal” (SH 587:5).
[Warren Huff:] The Bible account of Joseph miraculously answering Pharaoh’s question about the humanly unknowable meaning of his dream (Genesis 41:1-57) along with other correlated Science and Health citations in this week’s Bible lesson, remind me a precious time when these passages appeared in a Christian Science Bible Lesson as answers to prayer for me during a final exam week at Princeton University. Besides working out in daily spring training with the football team and working about 20-hour a week in University food service and mail delivery, and 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 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 had already fallen behind on the heavy reading assignments in several of the courses. So, on the Saturday morning before these finals, I thought, “How am I ever going to be ready to humanly read, study and prepare for these exams with no real study time between them?”
As I started to ponder my seemingly impossible situation, the 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 appendicitis attack. I chose to handle this aggressively pain with confident prayer to God, just as I’d had done successfully to quickly meet many other challenges, both small and big! Two quick, prayer-powered healings that made lasting impressions on me include one of a broken collar bone during-the game one season and the next season an amazing healing of a broken forearm — both without missing a minute of play and both verified by an X-ray prior to playing D-1 football. But when this very aggressive pain refused to yield quickly to my own prayers, I struggled to get to the privacy of a pay phone booth… (this was B.C.— Before Cell phones).
I was calling to ask for the uniquely powerful, prayerful support known as a Christian Science treatment as given with professional warmth and principled love by wonderful Christian Science practitioners (who are normally readily available worldwide).
This was also before Voicemail and answering machines were invented, so when none of the practitioners I knew from camp and from church picked up, and no human help seemed to be instantly available, I hobbled my way – still doubled over in pain— to a nearby Christian Science Reading Room. Its “quiet precincts” were just a few blocks away on Nassau Street and proved to be a perfect place to reach out directly to God for angel messages and my healing.
For five or six holy 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 stretch out on the floor whenever sitting up wasn’t comfortable… I snuggled up to every passage from the Comforter who was re-teaching me all the precious truths that applied to me in that week’s Christian Science Bible lesson. It included the account of Joseph’s divine intuition that enabled him to know and share the humanly unknowable dream of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:1-57). I reasoned that this was mine too and that God would give me the angel insights I needed to cherish to be healed as well as for my upcoming exams what I needed to study and write for essay answers. I loved that Joseph shared the way to humbly do this by telling Pharaoh, “it is not in me: God shall give … an answer of peace.” (Genesis 41:16).
I also distinctly remember feeling great relief in affirming for myself the truth that, “When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible.” (cit. S26/180:25) More lessons from the Comforter that I cherished during my Reading Room study came back to bless me big-time after I rejoiced in a permanent healing of appendicitis and was taking my finals.
That private Reading Room study area also gave me a perfect 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 from years of singing them in Sunday School, plus scores of others 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 and my grades and my very life depended on it. (And, I think they all did depend on and were blessed immeasurably by that unique and powerful preparation.)
I’ll always remember that as spiritual sense gave me more and more peace, I closed my healing hymn sing by cherishing each word of “Christ My Refuge” and poem and hymn (254-258) by Mary Baker Eddy. At about 3pm my tears of pain changed to tears of joy! The pain lifted off 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) … whereto God leadeth me. (Christian Science Hymnal #254)
With renewed freedom, I was inspired to RUN back to my Dodd Hall dorm room, to eat normally and prepare with peaceful inspiration Saturday night and Sunday for my first four final exams on Monday and Tuesday morning. I felt divinely inspired to review just what I needed to know and felt great and full of gratitude to God about my first four exams.
However, when I turned over the fifth exam on Tuesday afternoon, my heart dropped as I read all the exam questions which ask me to compare and contrast several books that I had intended to read over the weekend, but did not given the time I needed to spend in the Reading Room having my healing. I was seriously tempted at first to just go up to the exam proctor and turn in the exam with a note that I’d had a health challenge and was unable to adequately prepare for the exam and to ask to take the course on a Pass-Fail basis so that my B+ grade going into the final could at least get me a “Pass” on my transcript for this sociology course.
Then, I remembered citations from the Christian Science Bible lesson that I’d mined in the Reading Room as cherished gems to apply to myself. That included the account of Joseph humbly knowing it was not in him, but in God to give the right answer. (Genesis 41: 1-57)
As I stood up to walk up and give up, rather than try to write about books that I hadn’t even read, an angel message stopped me saying “the same Mind that made this test and that wrote every book is your Mind that is taking this test and I will tell you everything you need to know.”
I gained confidence from this and from remembering other ideas from the Bible lesson that I had cherished and made my own during my healing, spiritual study time in the Reading Room.
They included these now-favorite passages from Science and Health:
“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)
“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)
I sat back down with a joyous, confident prayer to glorify God by being a clear transparency, “a scribe under orders” (Mis. 311:26). I was determined to not try to make up myself what I humanly didn’t know, but to merely make it welcome. Ideas flowed and I effortlessly wrote them down. At the end of the three hours I handed in the exam with joy and in humble awe, I found out the next day that my final grade in the course actually improved to an A-. All glory to God!! Ponder the possibilities of gratefully accepting this three-word promise made to you too: “Impossibilities never occur” (SH 245:27). Just think of all that your divine Mind can show to you and can do through you when you too, like Joseph, know that “it is not in me. God shall give (me every) … answer” that I need, and I know it! (Genesis 41: 1-57)
Your deeply humble and grateful acceptance of this divinely scientific gift of the allness of God makes it yours and provable! As Mary Baker Eddy puts it: “Christian Science is a divine largess, a gift of God — understood by and divinely natural to him who sits at the feet of Jesus clothed in truth, who is putting off the hypothesis of matter because he is conscious of the allness of God — “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 349:11–16, Mary Baker Eddy quoting Hebrews 12:2)
[A rough draft of a testimony that I will be sending into the Christian Science periodicals.]
“ARISE, SHINE, FOR THY LIGHT HAS COME” as one who serves — to God’s delight!
See the message from Isaiah 60:1/cit. B20 as embroidered in Hebrew & in English on a prayer shawl from Israel. It’s a message from God – meant for us ALL today!
[See an online Downloadable picture of my prayer shawl, plus other insights by Cobbey Crisler from the book of Isaiah about the prophesied servant. [Isaiah 42:1, 7 and Isa. 61:1 + Malachi 4:2 about “the sun of righteousness will arise with healing in its wings.” The faith of the always-bleeding woman who reached out to touch the fringes of Jesus’ prayer shawl was rewarded with healing. (cit. B15/Matt. 9:20-22]
[Cobbey:] “Chapter 42:1, in a prophesy of a servant who should come, the “elect of God” who would have “the Spirit of God upon him.” You will notice in Verse 7 (and Isaiah 61:1 what the assignment of this servant would be, “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”
“Isn’t it interesting that the prophet Isaiah foresees this prophesied individual in the terms of “a servant” when the Greek word most often in the New Testament for healing has the classical Greek meaning of “to serve.” You remember how Jesus defined his ministry in those terms, “I came not to be ministered unto but to minister” [Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45]. Healing is serving by definition in Greek. Serving whom? God and man.”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
From Isaiah 60:4: “Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.”
From Christian Science Sentinel – December 28, 2020 Bible Lens on The Christian Science Bible Lesson on “God” for January 3. 2021:
“Jerusalem’s return to glory is depicted with stirring images, including the reuniting of families. … Jerusalem lies upon the central ridge of the country. From the landward side she can see caravans streaming in; from the west over the Mediterranean ships are sailing in like flocks of pigeons. Along with this vast commerce come her returning exiled children.” [The Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume 6]
P.S. With hymn singing 🎹 🎶 being a prominently part of awesome healings in at least three GEMS this week, you won’t want to miss CedarS online Zoom Hymn Sing this weekend! It will be this coming Sunday Night,
November 5 at 7pm CT (with a prelude at 6:45pm CT.
NOTE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ENDS THIS THIS SUNDAY!
(Otherwise you might be trying to enter the Zoom call an hour early!
Zoom Link 🎹 🎶:
- Join here with one click (password embedded).
- Meeting ID: 276 331 031
- Password: 736307
Watch for more info with theme, musicians, dial-n numbers and more.
