How do I practice my love for the Bible Lesson? As Elizabeth Barrett Browning might have put it, . . let me count the ways."1
First way: I try to capture the flow of thought as I read the Bible Lesson. I find it handy to jot down the thrust of each section in the white spaces around the list of citations for that section in my copy of the Christian Science Quarterly.
Second way: I try to read the Bible portion of the Bible Lesson each week in one or more translations other than the King James Version and make clarifying notes in the margins of my copy of that version. Usually I enlarge these annotations by using the "Working with the WORD" column of this magazine plus Bible dictionaries and commentaries.
Third way: I look for a single word that summarizes the message of the Lesson as a whole. I'm not always successful at this, but when I am it's very rewarding. In one Bible Lesson whose subject was "Christ Jesus," I found there was a strong subtheme of "peace" throughout. While reading it, I looked at my annotations in the margins of my Bible, entered over several years of studying the Bible Lesson in this way, and I had written down twenty-seven English words I found in Bible scholars' discussions of that rich Hebrew word shalom, among them blessing, harmony, health, and well-being. When I feel a need for in-depth study on the subject of peace, I can substitute any one of those words wherever the word peace appears in the Bible or in Mrs. Eddy's writings and get a fresh, helpful view of the subject.
Fourth way: I save my copies of the Quarterly for future study. When I'm searching deeply into a given concept, often a Lesson on that concept will uncover citations from the Bible and Science and Health that I might not readily find in searching Concordances to these two books.
How do I put the Bible Lesson into practice? The ways are too numerous even for Mrs. Browning to count, but I'll mention just a few. I consider this study "doing my homework" in the morning so I am prepared to meet, in a Christianly scientific way, whatever comes up during the day. There is always something in the Lesson that enables me to be more forgiving of the neighbor's youngster who bats his baseball through my front window, and that enables me to drive twenty-five miles per hour in a twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone instead of going faster. Insights from the Lesson inspire me to love the driver of an eighteen-wheeler who thinks he is in a Mercedes SL sports car and is giving little consideration to me in my little four-wheeler. What I learn from the Lesson helps me to recognize that malice is no part of any individual and to see the real, spiritual man— when I hear reports of atrocities from the evening news. It gives me a strong basis for prayer for the world. The Lesson's message enables me to say, "I'm on my way" when someone calls for assistance, and it prepares me to pray, "God's will be done" without ceasing every minute of the day.
