Sunday, November 25th, 2018 Roundtable
In the Potter’s Hand
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Soul and Body
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Morning Prayers
Father, teach me how to still the clamoring of sense, and fill my place as listener, that I may hear Thy voice and grow to understand Thy Word, and so become Thy messenger. Then teach me how to banish pride and stubborn will that I may be Thy representative – with no false sense of human zeal, that every word may bless and heal, when I Thy message give.
— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 61
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
184 — WATCH lest, in your effort to realize that God is Love, you fail to strengthen your faith in your ability to reflect that Love. Rain would do little good, if people endeavored to catch it in cracked vessels. What good is Love to man if animal magnetism has tricked him out of his confidence in his ability to reflect it?
Man’s ability to reflect Love is just as real as Love itself. Man is the reflection of Love, and he needs only to acknowledge this fact. All there is to error is the acknowledgment of it. Similarly with good; the acknowledgment of man’s reflection of Love must accompany the admission that God is Love.
— Watching Point 184 from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
Man is idea, the image, of Love;
— from the definition of Man from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 475
Golden Text — “The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.” — Psalm 34: 22
RESPONSIVE READING: Jeremiah 18 : 1-6
1. The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2. Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
3. Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
4. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
5. Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
6. O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
Forum post — Sense is set upon disproving the existence of Soul by Parthens
“Oh, if you are only willing to be as clay in the Great Potter’s hand…… he will fashion you so that you may be a vessel for His glory and for the benefit those around you” — Charles Spurgeon
Excerpt from Soul and Body by Peter V. Ross
3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
— 4. John 11 : 3, 4
Forum post — daily nearer God by Lynda from PA
Where is God to be found? Shall we seek Him in the sunset, in the clouds, in nature? Yes, but only as we are able to see these as symbols of Him. If one uses the very food that he eats, as a symbol of the infinite love of God, and of the fact that He cares for man even as He doth the lilies, then that food will enable man to search out God. If one takes the tree as the manifestation of God, reckoning it a symbol of God’s all-encompassing love, then, in the tree one finds God, thereby proving that we have our treasure in earthen vessels.
— from Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Footsteps by Gilbert Carpenter, page 501
Forum post — Christian Science healing vs New Age visualization by Jeremy from NJ
Final Readings
Do not fear anything that your present body seems to be doing. Every cell, fiber, tissue, gland, organ, or muscle of the human body exists right now in the one Mind as Idea, and each idea is proclaiming, “I am reflecting God, I am expressing God.” Every cell and fiber of my being is expressing the sovereignty of God, or proclaiming, “I AM.” (See S&H 162:12)
Mrs. Eddy says, “Immortal Mind, governing all, must be acknowledged as supreme in the physical realm, socalled, as well as in the spiritual.” (S&H 427:23) All facts that we know humanly are summed up in the perception of the one fact that, when we see, know, or understand anything that pertains to our human body, or our present world, it is the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities.
from Body (First Article) Addresses, by Martha Wilcox, page 59