PSST: Present your Real I.D. (identity)! By reflection it’s forever intact! (5)
Possible Sunday School Topics (PSST) for The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson:
“Soul and Body”
for May 15-21, 2023
prepared by Merrill Boudreaux, C.S., for CedarS Camps
pegasus6524@gmail.com • 314-308-1059
P.S.S.T. Golden Text (GT)/Psalm 90:1: “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”
How do you answer these questions:
- Do you have a soul?
- Do you have a body?
- How do you identify yourself to others?
- What are the qualities or features by which you are known?
- Do you know how Mary Baker Eddy answers the question: “What are body and Soul?” (See Science & Health 477:19)
Notice how in her answer Mary Baker Eddy keys in on what constitutes each of us, not a body or a soul, but on the word “identity”.
Note also that she states, “identity is”, not “was”, or “will be”, but “is”; that is, the present and forever now.
Also note that she declares identity to be reflection. What might you conclude? Perhaps that our, your identity exists as the “reflection of Spirit”. So, when thinking about our body or about Soul, we cannot leave out our Originator or Creator whom we reflect.
Note also that in the answer to the question, two other words stand out: “living” and “Love”. Could you then conclude the presence of life and Love are yours, and that you reflect in the forever now Life and Love?
Responsive Reading (RR)/Psalm 27:1,3-8; Psalm 62:5,6–
Is there any situation or circumstance where Love does not protect you, hide you, save you? Why does Love do that? You are precious in Love’s sight.
Think about Moses when leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, or Joseph caring for his brothers and family during the famine, or Jesus feeding the multitudes with a few loaves of bread and fishes.
These are examples of Love caring for Love’s reflection.
By the way, these were natural, not exceptional, actions.
P.S.S.T. Section 1 – Read together citation B4/Psalm 90:1 (repeating the Golden Text). That is the promise of the forever now that exists between God, Love, and you.
Do you love God? Does God love you? How do you know?
You are never abandoned.
In fact, you can never be separated from God, Love, because of your role as reflection.
Read together Romans 8:35,37-39:
“35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
“37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
“38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
“39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
P.S.S.T. Sections 2 and 3 – Here is a good role-play exercise in the story of the Shunammite woman in citations B7 and B9 (II Kings 4).
How does this story show God’s (Love’s) care for this woman?
Out of all the women around, why show her such care?
Be careful of this trick question. It would assume the abandonment of others. That is not Love’s nature. Love cares for all. See Matthew 6:27-34. Read also cit. S14/427:1-7. This is a forever-present truth.
P.S.S.T. Section 4 – If you ever doubt Love’s care for you or wonder if God, Love, is present in your life, then challenge that false suggestion with the truth as stated in cit. B10/Ps. 43:5 which starts with “Why art thou cast down, oh my soul?…”
P.S.S.T. Section 5 – Why do Christian Scientists call Jesus the “way shower”? What is the way he shows us? Read together cit. S22/316:7.
What does the word “demonstration” mean? Perhaps application and proof.
What are some truths from this lesson that may be applied in your life? Think especially about Elisha and the Shunammite woman, the Golden Text/cit. B4/Ps.90:1, and Jesus healing of the man with the withered hand in cit. B15/Mark 3:1-5.
All of these Bible events are examples of Love now with us assuring our forever identity is intact because that is the nature of reflection.
P.S.S.T. Section 6 – What is the promise to you who are planted in the house of the Lord? See cit. B17/Ps. 92:13-15. What cannot you do?
As you prepare for the end of the school year, and summertime, perhaps even camp, know that you go with God in the forever now.
Read together cit. S28/273:18, “Man is harmonious when governed by Soul.”
That’s YOU!
Now prepare your thought for the best summer yet!
