Article September 14, 1946 Issue

Searching the Scriptures

JOHN M. CLEMENT

Our blessed Master instructed his followers (John 5:39), "'Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." It will be readily admitted that searching the Scriptures means much more than just reading the Bible, however pleasant a task this may be. Our search must be for the spiritual meaning of God's message to mankind.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, was a devout student of the Bible and searched the divine Word thoroughly. At one time, after she had received severe injuries as a result of an accident, she read a passage from the Bible which so illumined her thought that she was instantly raised from what the doctor and her friends believed to be her deathbed. This momentous event in her life is referred to on pages 24 and 25 of her work "Retrospection and Introspection," where she says. "I then withdrew from society about three years,—to ponder my mission to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle, —Deity." She continues: "The Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue."

The "new meaning" and "new tongue" are what Jesus imparted to his followers. His own search of the Scriptures probably commenced when he was discovered by his parents sitting in the temple and both listening to the doctors and asking them questions (Luke 2:46). How well he knew the Scriptures was revealed when in his temptation in the wilderness he quoted portions of the Old Testament in reply to each argument of evil.

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