Article September 14, 1946 Issue

In My Father's House

FREDA SPERLING BENSON

From earliest days the house or home has been a symbol of safety, rest, peace, contentment, and stability. Peoples of all nations honor and respect their highest concept of home. It has been said that the progress of a country can be judged by its homes. The children of Israel journeyed to a promised land in order to come "out of the house of bondage," as Moses told them to do, to find homes of security where there was an opportunity to worship the one God. This was a first step toward finding the home of which Paul said, centuries later (II Cor. 5:1), "We have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

The Psalmist frequently sang of a dwelling place, as in the twenty-third Psalm, the last line of which has been interpreted as follows by Mary Baker Eddy, "And I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 578). The Psalmist also refers to this dwelling place as "the secret place of the most High" (Ps. 91: 1). Here man abides under God's protection.

Jesus' concept of home must have been spiritual, for he was able to have the attributes of home wherever and whenever he needed them. How beautifully he used the metaphor of "house" in his teaching! There was the parable of the two houses, one built upon the sand and the other built upon the rock, illustrating the need for a strong spiritual foundation upon which to build. Another was the story of the house divided against itself, which could not stand. And still another was the strong man's house that could not be entered without the strong man's first being bound.

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