Jesus' statement, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," as it is so often quoted, is especially dear to Christian Scientists, but it loses much of its signification and purpose by its separation from its context. The Master had been teaching and preaching in the temple, in the homes, and by the wayside, and proving by signs and wonders that the Father who had sent him was bearing him witness. Meanwhile the Pharisees, with hard argument and the stubborn resistance of unbelief, sought to turn the multitude away from, the understanding of the gracious message of salvation which was thus presented, and which was being received with gladness and believed by many.
Knowing the instability of the human mind and its propensity to cry hosanna today and crucify tomorrow, Jesus cautioned his hearers, and exhorted them to patience and diligence in the study of the great Principle of spiritual being which he taught them; and of one of those occasions when he had called the people unto him we read: "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciple's indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Again he said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; ...the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit."
Realizing how easily the cares and pleasures of this world can cloud the sense of the ever-presence of the Father, Jesus sought to impress upon his followers the importance of a singleness of purpose and endeavor in the effort to attain any advancement in the way of Life. His declaration that "no man can serve two masters" was a strong rebuke to those who were willing to regard lightly the new idea, which promised happiness and peace to its devotees, but found it easy to cling to their old methods and ceremonies and hard to break the chains of earlier environment and education. Entire reliance upon Truth for practical results was no less a matter of positive conviction and endeavor to the earlier followers of the Master than it is in our generation; and the understanding of Truth as an infinite, unchangeable, and ever-operative influence does not come to any consciousness without more or less striving. As our Leader tells us in Science and Health (p. 323), "This strife consists in the endeavor to forsake error of every kind and to possess no other consciousness but good."
