"Wise as serpents"

Admirable qualities, such as purity, goodness, innocence, inoffensiveness, kindness, justice, and so forth, every earnest student of Christian Science endeavors to express. They are worthy qualities, and bring the possessor rich rewards in terms of peace, joy, and serenity.

But experience shows that every virtue must be adequately protected against suggestions of evil—jealousy, hatred, resentment, which would trample virtue underfoot.

What are the means for guarding these qualities which we may have striven earnestly to cultivate? How shall we prevent the imposition of morbid aggressiveness, and preclude the intrusion of temptation which would rob us of the pure virtues that enrich our lives, by inducing us to act contrary to our best welfare?

Jesus' advice to his disciples, who were about to depart on their first missionary journey of preaching and healing, illustrates this vital point. The Master said to them, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves," and then admonished them, "Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."

Jesus likened his disciples to sheep, a term which Mrs. Eddy defines, in part, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 594 ), as "those who follow their leader." She also gives the spiritual meaning as "innocence; inoffensiveness." These two splendid qualities, and undoubtedly many others, were developed in the characters of the disciples while they were under the Master's tutelage and spiritual ministration. The wolves which he warned them they would meet in the world might be typified as unworthiness, dishonesty, lust, and hypocrisy. These, and other erroneous elements of mortal mind, they must guard against, and to do so they must be "wise as serpents."

To be "wise as serpents" we must employ the true concept of serpent. One page 515 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy, under the marginal heading "The serpent harmless," says, "The serpent of God's creating is neither subtle nor poisonous, but is a wise idea, charming in its adroitness, for Love's ideas are subject to the Mind which forms them,—the power which changeth the serpent into a staff."

As the student of Christian Science advance, the understanding of the spiritual characteristics of alertness, adroitness, vigilance, wisdom, becomes the staff of protection to the harmless, dovelike qualities of innocence, inoffensiveness, purity, spirituality, goodness, virtue. The door of character is thus guarded and strengthened to include good and exclude evil.

Some people in their effort to be right and do right overlook the first part of Jesus' admonition. They give sole attention to being as harmless as a dove. In the world, dovelike attributes require safeguarding, and under wisdom's wing these qualities unfold, expand, and grow into lovely blossoming. But if wisdom be absent, these qualities may be impaired by the chill winds of error, or blighted by the baneful influences of mortal mind. Mrs. Eddy admonishes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 128 ): "Be wise and harmless, for without the former the latter were impracticable. A lack of wisdom betrays Truth into the hands of evil as effectually as does a subtle conspirator; the motive is not as wicked, but the result is as injurious."

Though endeavoring to be true, should we mistake in some unwise act or err in some unwise statement, can we not use such experiences as steppingstones, instead of allowing them to be stumbling blocks? Does not the experience help us to see what is the wise thing to do? And is not our guide and instructor, Christian Science, always at hand?

Christian Science brings to the human apprehension the facts of divine Mind, so that the student is endued with increasing wisdom as he learns more of Mind as the real source of intelligence. Mistakes are not made in the realm of God's perfect wisdom, but in the unreal realm of human belief. And errors of belief are dissolved as the understanding of one's ability to use spiritual intelligence gains ascendancy in one's consciousness. Reliance on Spirit, not matter, on divine Mind, not mortal mind, enhances the natural tendency of thought to climb Spiritward. Mrs. Eddy writes (Miscellany, p. 5 ), "Human will may mesmerize and mislead man; divine wisdom, never."

It is profitable to consider how wisely and well our Leader protected Christian Science from the wolves that would prey upon the inoffensiveness of the sheep. She mentions her endeavor in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 52). Thus years of experience and prayer resulted in her giving to the Cause the Church Manual, which stands constant guard over the entire Christian Science organization, and acts as a bulwark of defense to this world-wide movement, and as a sheltering rock to each obedient member. Through the Manual, Mrs. Eddy wisely protected her discovery and her work, so that the inherent spiritual power of Christian Science should be preserved and perpetuated. The wisdom she exercised for the protection of the Christian Science movement, and individually for herself, serves as a useful lesson in working out out individual salvation.

When Jesus admonished his disciples, he did not say they were first to be as harmless as doves and then wise as serpents; he put the protective quality first. When wisdom goes first, the quality of harmlessness can safely follow. Wisdom is not negative. Wisdom does not strain or force itself. It is the normal exercise of spiritually right thinking and sound judgment, which naturally protects itself while achieving a right purpose. Perhaps we may glean this point from Jesus' parable of the ten virgins, in which he said that "five of them were wise, and five were foolish." The foolish virgins may in many respects have been just as worthy as the wise. They may have been just as good loving; yet through lack of wisdom they were unprepared when the bridegroom came. They had not used sound judgment. They were not alert. They had failed to protect their worthiness. The five wise virgins had seen to their own preparedness. The simple provisions which the foolish overlooked, the wise faithfully heeded, and when the bridegroom came, their righteousness and wisdom were rewarded. Moffatt translates II John 8 thus: "Watch yourselves; you must not lose what you have been working for, but gain a full reward."

To be "wise as serpents" in the true sense, a spiritual understanding and application of the qualities of "the serpent of God's creating" is requisite. Let us remember that human wisdom is not the real goal. While it may save us from many pitfalls, it is not the infallible wisdom of divine Mind. The endeavor of the Christian Scientist is to attain to perfect wisdom through understanding of the Scriptures, which, as Paul said to Timothy, are "able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

God, the one Mind, is forever expressing in man and the universe Mind's pure, protective, perfect ideas. Utilizing these ideas, laying claim to them as one's very own, knowing that man is the immediate expression of Mind, fortifies human consciousness and elevates the characteristics of perception, ability, capacity, and competence to a level nearer perfection. Thus do divine ideas illumine the way of true wisdom.