Articles

How often we find ourselves counting, measuring, and calculating numbers to answer a question, solve a problem, or describe a situation. Numbers permeate so many facets of life, from measuring personal health, to calculating how much time or money we have, to the state of the climate, to name just a few.

To quiet the clamor of worldly thinking, many people meditate. Others hike in the wilderness or go on a religious retreat.

Christian Scientists around the world receive the sermon for the Sunday church service ahead of time—a full week in advance! Why is this? To my knowledge, this arrangement is unique among churches. Why did Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science, provide for this? Why not listen to the sermon for the first time on Sunday? Or why not have a Bible Lesson followed by a related sermon with fresh texts?  A study of the Church Manual can help us understand this.

I had been wondering why churches were closing their doors. Then I realized a more productive question to ask is: What attracted people to Christianity and Christian Science in the first place? Specifically, how did Jesus build his global, spiritually prosperous church? What does prosperous mean? According to Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, it means: “Advancing in the pursuit of any thing desirable; making gain or increase; thriving; successful.

Have you ever stopped to think about the Christian Science Sunday School and why it is so important? In my position of Sunday School Support Lead for the Church Activities Department of The Mother Church in Boston, Massachusetts, I think about this a lot.   I regularly meet with individual branch Churches of Christ, Scientist, and in almost every meeting about Sunday School, I have asked, “What is a Christian Science Sunday School, really?” During these meetings, people have shared a wide spectrum of wonderful ideas.

A book by a top professor at The Wharton School, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania, identifies some individuals as “givers”—who give without concern for what they may get back—and some as “takers”—who want to receive more than they give and “win” every transaction. The author, Adam Grant, researched which kind of orientation brought more success, both to the individuals and their endeavors.

My parents liked to travel and my childhood was full of many wonderful adventures. I don’t remember every museum, monument, and church we toured, but I remember how Mom prayed before each trip and throughout our vacations.

Christian Scientists believe in, honor, and obey the Ten Commandments as given to Moses by God thousands of years ago. Many of them, such as the commands not to kill or steal (see Exodus 20:13, 15 ), have been embraced by society and have become part of everyday life.

We learn in Christian Science that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. And since God is good, we would naturally expect His government to be good—to be fair and just, to express kindness, honesty, incorruptibility.

There’s an expression that “scales fall from someone’s eyes” when they have a revolutionary insight or gain a completely new perspective and understanding. It refers to the Damascus experience of Paul (then known as Saul) when, after he became blind, he was visited by Ananias and, as the Bible describes, “immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith” (see Acts 9:1–18 ).