IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON January 18, 2010 Issue

THE POWER OF GOD'S WORD

VIRGINIA STOPFEL

"TRUTH," THE SUBJECT of this week's Christian Science Bible Lesson, bases our understanding of the ways in which God works in human experience. As this Lesson makes clear, God's law and God's Word are foundational to daily life, and His character is rock-solid Truth (see Deut. 32:4, citation 2).

The Responsive Reading, drawn from Psalm 119, contains several terms that illustrate the authority and strength of Truth: word, ordinances, law, precepts, testimonies, and judgments. Each of these particular aspects of God is preceded by "thy" or "thine," and is followed by an illustration of what God has accomplished in the psalmist's life. And this holds true for all of us today.

It might be helpful to appreciate that the first Bible citation has nothing to do with time. "In the beginning" is St. John's way of saying that God's Word has always existed in His presence. The Old Testament understanding of word is "the creative force that brings things into being." The early followers of Jesus would have known this and recognized the parallel between the prologue to John's Gospel (John 1:1–18) and God's creative activity discussed in Genesis 1.