I consider it a very important day in my progress in Christian Science—the day I quit reading the lesson and started studying it. Before that, reading the lesson was something I did, a duty and privilege I performed with gratitude, but too often the depth of the message, the multiple meanings, would escape me. When I began to study, a whole new lesson awaited me. The more I mined its depths, the more I found. I began using a Bible commentary and a Bible dictionary, and I traced Scriptural stories and phrases and searched for original meanings. I often found that familiar Biblical accounts and verses had meanings I had not even imagined.
And then I made the biggest discovery of all: I found the Appendixes in the Concordances to Mrs. Eddy's writings. Here for Science and Health and all her other writings are listed all direct Biblical quotations she uses. Comparing the Quarterly citations with these lists quickly locates where she has used a citation. Her use of a passage and/or comments on it often adds a dimension found no place else. And, of course, the Concordances provide an opportunity to further check key words and ideas being emphasized in a particular lesson. A dictionary is always helpful, and sometimes a thesaurus.
This has not meant that studying the lesson has become an involved intellectual exercise, but rather a joyous journey led each day and each week by divine inspiration. My study follows no pattern, except that it is study. One lesson may inspire only limited research in other sources. Another, much. But the end is the same, to find the meaning of the lesson, to know it so well that I can paraphrase its message in my own words, and, most important, to apply it to my human experience, to bless and heal all those within the range of my thought.
