One of the most important things to be considered in the study and demonstration of Christian Science is the necessity for being strictly accurate or correct in the understanding of the statements contained in the Scriptures. In the study of the Bible we of today are very apt to forget that modern usage has in many instances changed the meaning of the words from the sense in which they were employed at the time when the King James version was published. Some words have lost their original significance, and many, through constant use by members of theological schools, have acquired a technical meaning very different from that in which they were used when the English language began to take definite shape, as it had done at the time of the Reformation.
There is a tendency in the human mind to follow the line of least resistance, and most people are satisfied to arrive at their conclusions from superficial observation. Being disinclined to go to the trouble of ascertaining facts for themselves, they are willing to accept the most plausible argument or the most forceful assertion as truth. This tendency has always been recognized and taken advantage of by those who for any reason wanted to control others or to keep them in total or partial ignorance of the facts.
Christ Jesus was not satisfied with this state of things. As Mrs. Eddy says on page 313 of Science and Health, "He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause," and his teachings and demonstrations were a constant endeavor to show his followers the necessity of doing the same. In the Sermon on the Mount, that remarkable multum in parvo of religious instruction and correction, there is a passage which must have been a "hard saying" to many of his hearers, and which has puzzled many earnest students since. He had been declaring that his mission was not to destroy—to set at naught the teaching of the law or the prophets; in fact he said that not the smallest detail should pass away from the law "till all be fulfilled." He then went on to speak of the exactness with which the Pharisees and scribes taught the people the written and oral law, and the scrupulousness with which they exacted obedience to their teachings; and, notwithstanding that this seemed to be an indorsement of the thoroughness of these teachers, he added, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."
