PSST: Life be with you [and your Life-lesson take-aways] – because it truly is.
Possible Sunday School Topics (PSSTs) for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson:
“Life”
for July 12-18, 2021
prepared by Merrill Boudreaux, C.S.
pegasus6524@gmail.com • 314-308-1059
P.S.S.T. Golden Text (GT) Enjoy all things new and freer!
Psalms 42:8: What is the view of your life on your horizon? Longevity, happiness, fulfillment, ever-new, deathless?
Read together Hymn 542 from the Christian Science Hymnal (printed here):
Hymn 542 & 218-220:
O Life that maketh all things new,
The blooming earth, the thoughts of men;
Our pilgrim feet, wet with Your dew,
In gladness hither turn again.
From hand to hand the greeting flows,
From eye to eye the signals run,
From heart to heart the bright hope glows,
The seekers of the Light are one:
One in the freedom of the truth,
One in the joy of paths untrod,
One in the heart’s perennial youth,
One in the larger thought of God;
The freer step, the fuller breath,
The wide horizon’s grander view;
The sense of Life that knows no death, –
The Life that maketh all things new.
P.S.S.T. Responsive Reading (RR) [Make and take time to count your blessings!]
Psalms 84:2,4,5,8-11; 56:4,12,13: What are some blessings written in the Responsive Reading that reinforces your understanding of your relationship to the living God?
- Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house
- Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee
- The Lord God is a sun and shield
- The Lord God will give grace and glory
- Thou hast delivered my soul from death
- Will not Thou deliver my feet from falling?
P.S.S.T. Section 1 – What does it mean to you to walk in the light of the living?
Who sheds this living light to lighten and brighten your path?
What are the qualities/characteristics of God as the living light recorded in this section?
- He is the living God, and an everlasting king
- He made the earth by His power
- He established the world by His wisdom
- He stretched out the heavens by His discretion
- The spirit of God made me and gives me life
What are more benefits of understanding that Life is God? (citation S2, Science & Health 487:27)
P.S.S.T. Section 2 – Ask students to apply this scripture story of Daniel to current issues that need a Christian Science prayer treatment. What do your students know of the scripture story as recorded in cit. B5/Daniel 6?. Examples: extreme heat, reduced water for crops, storms and flooding, political arguments, insufficiencies of any kind anywhere….
- Is God intelligent?
- Is God in control over all?
- Is there a power opposite to God?
- Is Life independent of matter?
- Are you subject to decay and dust?
(All of these answers are in the Science & Health portion of this section.)
P.S.S.T. Section 3 – What is the key point of the scripture story of transfiguration in cit. B7/Matthew 17:1-9?
- Understanding of Life eternal
- Clarity of sight
- Eternal goodness
- A clear statement of how God sees us – “…my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;..”
Read together “the stones in the temple of Christian Science” as postulates in cit. S16/288:20:
- Life is God, good, and not evil;
- Soul is sinless, not to be found in the body;
- Spirit is not, and cannot be, materialized;
- Life is not subject to death;
- The spiritual real man has no birth, no material life, and no death.
You represent Life, Soul, God exclusively, that is, to the exclusion of any false suggestion or belief.
P.S.S.T. Section 4 – What did Jesus awaken Lazarus from? Death? NO.
From “the dream, illusion, of death…” (cit. S20/SH 493:28-2).
Why is it important to know this? If Jesus believed in or accepted death as real, he could never have resuscitated Lazarus. What is the great spiritual fact stated in cit. S22/SH 428:19-23: “man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal.”
P.S.S.T. Section 5 – Choose ye!
Because you are a student of Christian Science, what are the demands on you, what are you commanded to do? See cit. S25/405:5-11,18. Choose ye!
Citation S27/91:5 is another statement of how the scripture stories of Daniel, the transfiguration, and Lazarus were accomplished.
P.S.S.T. Section 6 – Life be with you [and your take-aways] – because it truly is.
Read together Hymn 12 from the Christian Science Hymnal (printed here):
Hymn 12 & 13:
Arise ye people, take your stand,
Cast out your idols from the land,
Above all doctrine, form or creed
Is found the Truth that meets your need.
Christ’s promise stands: they that believe
His works shall do, his power receive.
Go forward then, and as ye preach
So let your works confirm your speech,
And prove to all with following sign
The Word of God is power divine.
In love and healing ministry
Show forth the Truth that makes men free.
O Father-Mother God, whose plan
Hath given dominion unto man,
In Thine own image we may see
Man pure and upright, whole and free.
And ever through our work shall shine
That light whose glory, Lord, is Thine.
“Above all doctrine, form or creed is found the Truth that meets your need.”
So as is stated in citation B14/2 Corinthians 5:17,18: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away;..”
What is your key takeaway from this Lesson? Perhaps,
- “Life is eternal” (cit. S28/248:27-28)
- “Being is holiness, harmony, immortality…” (cit. S29/492:7-12)
- “Let discord of every name and nature be heard no more…” (cit. S30/355:11)
Life be with you [and your Life-lesson take-aways] – because it truly is.
