"The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must he to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth he gained," declares Mary Baker Eddy on page 547 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." In the next paragraph she says, "It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith."
Accordingly the student of Christian Science daily studies and searches the Bible for more of this spiritual perception and divine inspiration. In its inspired pages, from Genesis to Revelation, he discerns the divine Science of the Scriptures, which outmodes much accepted religious theory and many doctrines and creeds by revealing Scriptural promises, examples, and teachings to be practical today in healing the sick, as well as in reclaiming and regenerating the sinful.
In approaching our subject, that is, in our efforts to perceive the spiritual import of the Scriptures in their healing and saving grace, let us consider the connotation as well as the explicit meaning of words. If we take the noun pasture for example, we find one of its meanings to be "grassland for grazing animals." The connotation of this word, according to one's experiences, calls to mind pleasant spring days, quiet resting places, babbling brooks, singing birds, harmony, peace, even tender memories. The familiar twenty-third Psalm presents a good example of some of these connotations: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters." Here we are told that the Shepherd, divine Love, leads and directs one into a state of consciousness which assures peace, quietude, comfort, and rest—a spiritual state of thought where courage, assurance, and confidence in God's loving and protecting care are recognized.
