Substantial insights and GEMs to cherish and to prove for ourselves and our neighbors all across the globe!
from insights of Cobbey Crisler and others** for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Substance”
for September 6-12, 2021
shared by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
For a WHOLE BODY, STOP the DUALISM of trying the doomed-to-fail plan of the DEVIL (of diabolos, of trying to throw/shoot at the same time in opposite directions (of good & evil)!
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 6:22-23/Responsive Reading: “the light of the body is the eye…”
[Cobbey:] “(Matthew 6, verse 22). Should we be surprised when it says, ‘The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single’? Haven’t we been prepared for that in Jesus’ theology up to now? [Warren’s connection to the divine theology directive in the Golden Text: “Do not mix two kinds of seeds and then plant them in your field.” (Leviticus 19:19, NIRV)
“Single, not double vision, duality. Commitment to something other than one God, dividing our sight between what is corrupt and what is pure. Because “if our eye is single,” here’s an equation again. You can make that into an equation. “if thine eye be single”, how does the body respond? Your body is whole. Your body’s single too. Not fragmented.
(BONUS Verse 23) But, ‘if your eye is evil,’ see the parallelism? His definition of evil is what? The opposite of single. ‘If your eye is single,’ he says, on one hand, on the other hand, he says, ‘if your eye is evil.’ So, evil is something other than single. He is showing that it’s the devil’s outlook, ‘diabolos’ in Greek, the attempt to put dualism on the throne, or have a divided throne.
Isn’t that why in the Book of Revelation (4:2), one of the greatest revelations vouchsafed to John as a seer, was the fact he saw a throne in heaven and one sat on the throne. Just that single vision, according to Jesus, would result in instantaneous healing in our bodies, to see the throne in heaven and only one on it. No one, or no thing, or no thought other than what comes from God can have ascendancy or sovereignty, then, in our being, because ‘our body is full of light’ from the one that sits on the throne. (Matthew 6:22)
There’s something about divine logic that always coincides with divine revelation. The divine logic that Jesus is showing here was coincident with the revelation that John got.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
KEEP SINGLE-MINDED WITH YOUR “EYES ON THE PRIZE” OF LIBERTY!
From Warren’s 10/7/19 insights from James 1:25/Responsive Reading (RR):
“whoso looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
- “Keep your eyes on the prize”—on the perfect law of liberty (like on the Statue of Liberty which David Copperfield “vanished” by literally “turning the tables” under his entire audience as explained by Christie Hanzlik) and shown on YouTube youtube.com/watch?v=823GNH4Rczg. If our perfect –free, large, full— liberty seems to be “vanished” by a group consent illusion or a popular turning to material beliefs, we can instantly turn the tables on those fables and look continually to the perfectly stable and divinely invariable LAW of liberty…
- Be an unwavering, all-in DOER— NOW! — NOT a forgetful hearer!
Find meaning in the rest of the first chapter of James:
Cobbey Crisler’s insights on James 1:17/RR: “Every good gift and every perfect—free, large, full—gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”—as in an eclipse (W: or a revolving audience for a vanishing Statue of Liberty trick).
As promised in scriptures:
“God is not a man, that he should lie…hath he not said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19}
And, “For I am the Lord; I change not.” (Malachi 3:6)
James 1:18 “Of his own will begat he us with the word—logos—of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures”—a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself.”
[per Warren’s notes on Cobbey Crisler’s talk on “The Book of Job”]
… “We already know that James read Job because we read the verse (James 5:11) that mentions Job in it…
James 1:6 tells us how we should pray— [W’s 10/7/19 notes: like Job did who never wavered in proclaiming his spiritual innocence. Job so refined his powerful prayers of protest to God that he received his healing and “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10)].
[Cobbey:] You’ll find when prayer is not prayer… “Let him ask in faith nothing wavering.” Wavering suggests this to-and-fro state of mind…
James 1:8/RR “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”…
James 3:17/RR “But the wisdom that is from above” all stems from the commitment to oneness.”
“The Book of Job: A Mental Court Case” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
[W.] As James 3:17 declares, wise prayers from above are committed to oneness and guaranteed of success. As Mary Baker Eddy states of the unsuccessful prayers for President McKinley when he was shot. “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.”
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 293:21)
Here’s to analyzing these precious, promises and principles and to applying them to get the blessings of putting them into practice with “no opposing element”: Look to “the perfect (free, large, full) law of liberty” (Responsive Reading/James 1:25) as an unwavering, permanent gift from above as we know the truth and practice it.
As Mary Baker Eddy says “Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practiced.” (SH 174:20)
[Warren’s P.S. Here’s a proposed reply by Ken Cooper of the U.K. to a reader of his poem “Ye are the light of the World” objecting to the charge that the Christian (Science) concept the Christ light shining out the allness of God, good, seems to be ignoring all the evil in the world:]
[Ken Cooper’s answer:] “Thank you for your important questions. We are in agreement, in that the best way to contend with an error is to destroy it, not to ignore it. If one is suffering from a nightmare, the way to end the nightmare is to wake up from the dream, – yet our challenge is that this dream seems to be the reality, – and indeed the picture we see around us is very real. How then to respond? Our model is Jesus, who came to show us the true nature of God, – not just in his words, but in his actions. Over the three years of his ministry and mission he dealt with all kinds of evil. He prevented the Pharisees stoning a woman, – he did not turn his back and say it was not a real challenge. Without his intervention she would have been killed. He raised a young girl from her death bed, – without his intervention , she would have remained dead and her parents sorrowful. When in a storm at sea, which threatened the lives of the fishermen, he calmly said “Winds, behave, peace be still” and the storm ceased. Our daily prayers are for peace in this world, that we can have that mind that was in Christ Jesus to bring healing to every situation than needs it. This is proactive and step by step it brings results. The Sermon on the Mount, if followed by everyone, would bring peace on earth. It included the message “Love thy enemies, do good to them that hate you….” This requires an absolute, active Love, which has been proved to heal. This is a challenge for all of us, not a turning away. Jesus healed the problems he was faced with, so must we. The aim of Christian Science is to destroy evil, not to ignore it, and in Jesus we have our Master and Guide. Our service to God is to be obedient to Him, to express His Love. That will end the problems that we face. God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. Seeing what God made is seeing what Jesus saw, and this led to healing. That is what we are earnestly aiming to achieve too.”
MORE TO COME, both with added insights from Cobbey and others for other sections as well as
SOON from Kerry Jenkins, CS, reading her Met (Met-aphysical application ideas) for the whole Lesson!
