CS Quarterly Bible Lesson - Subject - LIFE from Jan-20-1918 -- 1 of 3

CS Quarterly Bible Lesson - Subject - LIFE from 1-20-1918 -- 2 of 3

CS Quarterly Bible Lesson - Subject - LIFE from 1-20-1918 -- 3 of 3

The ''Christian Science Quarterly'' (Bible Lessons) is a publication of the

Christian Science Publishing Society The Christian Science Publishing Society was established in 1898 by Mary Baker Eddy and is the publishing arm of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts. Origin and purpose The Christian Science Publishing Society and t ...

that sets out the Bible lessons for all students of

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...

. Each lesson serves as the Sunday sermon in church and is studied for the week preceding the Sunday on which it is read as the sermon.

Daily Bible study and Sunday sermon

Called the Lesson-Sermon, each week's Bible lesson is read in daily individual study during the week, and as the Sunday sermon in Christian Science church services around the world. It is composed of a series of references from the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

and the Christian Science textbook, '' Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'', written by

Mary Baker Eddy Mary Baker Eddy (July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded ''The Christian Science Monitor'', a Pulitzer Prize-winning s ...

. The particular topic for each week's lesson follows one of twenty-six subjects chosen by Eddy, who "discovered" Christian Science in 1866 and founded the church in 1879. The citations for each lesson are selected by the Bible Lesson Committee in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts. The subjects are (in order): ''God; Sacrament; Life; Truth; Love; Spirit; Soul; Mind; Christ Jesus; Man; Substance; Matter; Reality; Unreality; Are Sin, Disease and Death Real?; Doctrine of Atonement; Probation After Death; Everlasting Punishment; Adam and Fallen Man; Mortals and Immortals; Soul and Body; Ancient and Modern Necromancy, alias Mesmerism and Hypnotism, Denounced; God the Only Cause and Creator; God the Preserver of Man; Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?;'' and ''Christian Science''. The sequence of 26 subjects is studied twice each year, though the passages change from week to week, making each week's lesson different.John, DeWitt, ''The Christian Science Way of Life''. Christian Science Publishing Society (1962), pp. 58-59. There is no special Christmas or Easter lesson, however there is an additional lesson for

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...

, read in the United States on

Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden a ...

. For countries other than the U.S., the Thanksgiving service is optional. Branch churches outside the U.S. choose a date and time that is convenient for them to hold their Thanksgiving service. No collection is taken at any Thanksgiving service. When there are 53 Sundays in a year, the subject ''Christ Jesus'' is added a second time. The lesson begins with the "Golden Text", a short passage from the Bible related to that week's subject. It is followed by the "Responsive Reading", Bible verses which expound on the focus set by the Golden Text. During the Sunday service, the reading of these verses alternates between the

lay Lay may refer to: Places *Lay Range, a subrange of mountains in British Columbia, Canada *Lay, Loire, a French commune *Lay (river), France *Lay, Iran, a village *Lay, Kansas, United States, an unincorporated community People * Lay (surname) * ...

First Reader and the congregation. The body of the lesson is divided into several sections, which further develop different aspects of the subject. Bible verses are read first in each section, followed by passages from Science and Health which correlate to the Bible verses selected. For over 100 years, lesson-sermons always had six sections, except for the

lesson, which had four sections, but since 2006, there have been a varying number of sections, from as few as five to as many as eleven. The Sunday services, which in addition to the sermon, include three hymns, silent and audible prayer, a solo, announcements and a collection, are conducted by the First Reader. During the sermon portion of the service, the Second Reader begins reading the Bible citations, followed by the First Reader who reads the correlative passages from ''Science and Health'' for that section, alternating until each of the sections have been read. The Sunday service is one hour long. The Christian Science Bible Lessons are available in 13 languages and several editions, including audio and digital. The original format, now called the Citation Edition, was designed to be an outline of passages (see example lesson at right) that would promote individual study of the Bible and Christian Science textbook, but in recent years, has been largely supplanted by a time-saving monthly booklet that reprints all the citations. Lesson-sermons from 1904-1922 are in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

.Collection of public domain Christian Science publications
The Ark. Retrieved July 1, 2013

Notes

References

External links

Christian Science Bible Lesson
official church site {{Christian Science Publishing Society Christian Science magazines