[P.S.S.T.: Let pressure yields to Presence; re-acquaint yourself with Soul!]
Possible Sunday School Topics by Merrill Boudreaux
for the Christian Science Bible Lesson:
“Soul” February 17, 2013
P.S.S.T. Golden Text –
Ask students to read aloud what is often called the Magnificat in Luke 1: 46-55. How is God magnified or focused on as present in our lives? We use our soul or spiritual sense to see God. What is listed as the benefits to mankind in the passages just read in Luke? Do you desire the appearance of God in your lives this way? Let us use this lesson as a stepping stone to rededicate or reacquaint ourselves with God.
P.S.S.T. – Responsive Reading
I am lifting up my soul or using my spiritual sense to reacquaint or reconnect with God I can begin with some baseline truths in the Responsive Reading. Ask students to list those baseline truths.
Example:
Lord art good, ready to forgive, plenteous in mercy, thou wilt answer
me, doest wondrous things, thou art God alone…
Who wouldn’t want to be acquainted with and rededicated to that God?
P.S.S.T. – Section 1 –
– As I reacquaint myself with God, what blessings do I see? What does with open face mean? Receptivity, willing to silence testimony of the physical senses, not just for show or for the benefits, but because I am doing better at understanding God and the presence of God in my life. What is the key word in citation S6? All. No one is left out; none of the infinite variety that is needed for the full expression of God to be evidenced can be marginalized or disrespected.
P.S.S.T. – Section 2 –
What is it that we rededicate our lives to in this section? Prosperity, health, wisdom, knowledge, discretion, strength, opened eyes, unstopped ears, leaping, singing, streams in the desert, saving health, blessing. Rededicate one’s self to reversing mortal sense testimony to arrive at what? S8. When we rededicate ourselves to an understanding of the spiritual basis of life what do we obtain? S10.
P.S.S.T. – Section 3 –
[Since pressure always yields to Presence,] re-acquaint yourself with God as Presence, never absent from your life. If you have ever thought of yourself as a lost sheep, think again. See Matt. 18: 11 – 14. Why cannot you be lost? S17. That is your progressive being – get reacquainted with it.
P.S.S.T. – Section 4
Reacquaint yourself with harmony. Which is real and true to you? Accident, chance, vulnerability or harmony in all that you do and with all you come in contact? Ask students to share examples when they reached out to see God as presence in an awkward situation – what happened? What if the argument is, yes but age, bullies, a lack of wisdom, understanding, money, strength, or poverty was evidenced as real, what then? What role does rededicating one’s self to the attributes of Soul in our lives contribute to the situation? S21.
P.S.S.T. – Section 5 –
Read the story in citation B21. How did Jairus rededicate himself to knowing God? Remember he was a ruler of the synagogue, a man of power and control. How did he show a willingness to know God, to rely on the God with whom he was acquainted and Jesus Chris whom God sent? See citation S22 line 25.
P.S.S.T. – Section 6 –
Does your re-acquaintance with God make you feel like singing, dancing, or praising God in some other way? Help students to write a poem or song to summarize what they learned from this lesson. Hymn 134 is a good example. [“I look to Thee in every need, And never look in vain;…”] Close with the benediction of assurance in Job 22:21. [“Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; thereby good will come to thee.”]
