Our Anglo-Saxon word church is derived from the Greek word kyriakon, which means, "the Lord's house." This nomenclature indicates a leader with a body of followers; it furthermore points to a departure on the part of some from an established condition of belief. This phenomenon of a change of base in the mental realm always gives impulse to two inquiries, viz.: What is the spiritual cause which impels this departure from the old? and, What are the laws of being whose operation is setting aside inertia and age-worn theories in mortal mind? In other words, in the concrete example of the church which Jesus established, what is the spiritual fact about church as belonging to the Lord?
Jesus' sudden question to his disciples, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" followed by the metaphysical statement to Peter, after the latter's remarkable answer to the above question, "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," was by no means a question with the purpose of eliciting personal, flattering opinions or avowals of selfish attachment. This question followed a remarkable series of sermons and healings. In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught that those who sought first the kingdom of God, Spirit, should have all needed supply, and twice he had fed great multitudes after they had followed him into the wilderness to hear of this kingdom. Not only had he taught that all things which offended should be gathered out of the world and destroyed by the angels of God, but he himself did literally cast out all manner of diseases through his spiritual understanding. Not only did he teach and preach his Father's control over all, but he stilled the tempest when occasion arose, and walked upon the sea.
Judging, then, from the life of the Founder of the Christian church, the spiritual cause of church is the understanding of the supremacy of Spirit and of the laws of Life, Truth, and Love, whose operation feeds the multitudes, heals the sick, restores the maimed, opens blind eyes, masters untoward manifestations of the elements, and raises the dead. All of this life of Christ Jesus is most interesting as history made in past ages, but to us in this age the all-stirring desire is that we ourselves ma become members of this true church of Jesus' founding, and that we may find the ways and means by which to become identified with it, whereby we may begin to receive the blessings which aforetime flowed from such church membership. What, short of a Christianly scientific understanding of church, can fulfill so glorious a hope?
