Sunday, July 22nd, 2018 Roundtable

Honesty Is Spiritual Power

This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Truth

Click here to play the audio as you read:

Also available on YouTube


Click here for the Roundtable archive

Morning Prayers

I believe in obeying the laws of the land. I practise and teach this obedience, since justice is the moral signification of law. Injustice denotes the absence of law. Each day I pray for the pacification of all national difficulties, for the brotherhood of man, for the end of idolatry and infidelity, and for the growth and establishment of Christian religion — Christ’s Christianity. I also have faith that my prayer availeth, and that He who is overturning will overturn until He whose right it is shall reign. Each day I pray: “God bless my enemies; make them Thy friends; give them to know the joy and the peace of love.”

— from Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, page 220: 12-23




We, to-day, in this class-room, are enough to convert the world if we are of one Mind; for then the whole world will feel the influence of this Mind; as when the earth was without form, and Mind spake and form appeared.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 279: 27-2

Discussion points

Forum post — “Walking in truth” by Susanne from VT




Forum post — What Is Truth? by Florence from GA




“to thine own self be true, … Thou canst not then be false to any man.” — Shakespeare




Unless a man advances spiritually, he is not scientific; and if he is scientific he must start honestly, and journey some every day; and however long he is in reaching the desired goal, if his honesty be preserved, he will finish his course.

— from Science and Health, 1875, by Mary Baker Eddy




… the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

— from 1 Timothy 1:5 (New American Standard Bible)




When every form and mode of evil disappear to human thought, and mollusk and radiate are spiritual concepts testifying to one creator, — then, earth is full of His glory, and Christian Science has overshadowed all human philosophy, and being is understood in startling contradiction of human hypotheses; and Socrates, Plato, Kant, Locke, Berkeley, Tyndall, Darwin, and Spencer sit at the feet of Jesus.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 361: 9-16




If the Bible and “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” had in our schools the time or attention that human hypotheses consume, they would advance the world.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 366: 1-4




The false theories whose names are legion, gilded with sophistry and what Jesus had not, namely, mere book-learning, — letter without law, gospel, or demonstration, — have no place in Christian Science. This Science requires man to be honest, just, pure; to love his neighbor as himself, and to love God supremely.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 366: 31-4




As a literature, Christian metaphysics is hampered by lack of proper terms in which to express what it means. As a Science, it is held back by the common ignorance of what it is and of what it does, — and more than all else, by the impostors that come in its name. To be appreciated, it must be conscientiously understood and introduced.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 365: 26-32




Andrew Hartsook article on Ann Beals, of The Bookmark. Quotes from her book, “The Law of Love.”




Forum post — There must be a falling away first by Jeremy from NJ




Forum post — meekness and living the commandments by Lynda from PA




A Christian Science Sentinel from 1913 said there was a state law in PA that teachers had to read 10 verses of the Bible each day, or be fired.




There is within us a divine selfhood that recognizes the genuine, good and true; a reflection of the divine perfection and intelligence, that enables us to lay hold of the Truth when it is presented to us.

— from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 175 (from the Saturday, July 14th, 2018 Unity Watch)




Forum post — “A Truth That’s Told With Bad Intent” by parthens




Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 453




Final Readings

I give you nothing new; there is nothing new under the sun. It is only the application of an eternal Truth in a new and practical way. I cannot answer all your questions for I cannot answer all my own. There is an eternity for us to learn in, if we patiently wait. If you cannot understand my terms, wait and see what they mean. Do not misconstrue them by your old interpretations. Come empty of all preconceived opinions, creeds, prejudices, doctrines or isms, to receive the Truth, and with charity of open minds receive the Truth I give you; then test the reality of your own by it. Except one is empty he cannot be filled.

No one ever learned a truth by argument, for any falsity can be established by the reasoning of the natural mind. Spiritual Truth is only spiritually discerned. I give you but the key to knowledge. You can only unlock by living it in your own life; otherwise it will be only theory. There is no salvation in theory.

I will never say a word I have not proven. If I theorize I will tell you so. I can only show the way I have gone. I am only an Ambassador, a voice, to lead you into your own kingdom where God, the Truth, alone illumines every one according to his own degree. The system of Truth I am teaching when reduced is simply, the bringing the Christ to you, or the Way, the Truth, and the Life to your whole being.

I wish as an act of justice that you hold sacredly in your memory that I assume no good or power of myself, that to God alone I ascribe all love, wisdom and power, the All-in-all, the all good; that I am absolutely nothing, a mere instrument in God’s hands to be used as He will. This is the only position for any one of us to be in.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, the “blue book,” by Mary Baker Eddy, page 213




Print this page


Share via email