I approach the work by realizing that the dual and impersonal pastor of our Church is the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, rejoicing that the Lesson-Sermons drawn from these books are a means of communing with God Himself.
The first step in my study is silent prayer, repeating the Lord's Prayer and the "Daily Prayer," and realizing the truth of everything I repeat. This prepares my thought to receive the teachings of the lesson for the week. I direct my thought to its subject and observe thoughtfully the Golden Text in relation to the subject. I ponder the Bible citations in the Responsive Reading and consider their meaning in relation to the Golden Text. If the relationship seems obscure, as is sometimes the case, I use dictionaries, Bible and regular, Bible commentaries, and sometimes several different translations of the Bible to gain the shade of meaning needed to understand the citations clearly. This work gives a firm grasp of the subject and prepares thought for the six sections which constitute the lesson.
I search for the central idea of each section and watch to see how it relates to all the citations in that section, working to gain the spiritual sense of every citation and understand how it develops and explains the central idea of the section.
