Article November 17, 1997 Issue

The surprise ending to my study of the Key to the Scriptures

Sharla Jean Pugh

As I was nearing the end of my term as First Reader, conducting the services in my church, I was preparing for a Wednesday evening testimony meeting. I felt impelled to read to the congregation on the subject of the beginning and end times recorded in Genesis and Revelation in the Bible. I researched these books, along with the chapters "Genesis" and "The Apocalypse" in the Key to the Scriptures in Science and Health.

Starting out, I saw more clearly that Mary Baker Eddy's exegesis of portions of Genesis reveals the root of mankind's problems as well as their solution. The sorrows we face, it makes clear, result from believing the second account of creation, recorded in Genesis 2. This allegory has Eve subordinate to her husband, Adam doomed to work by his own sweat, their offspring Cain murdering his brother, and so forth.

But we don't have to live like that—feeling inferior, overwhelmed, hostile. Why not? Because the only conceivably true record of what an all-loving, all-powerful Father-Mother God would create is set forth in the first chapter of Genesis. There creation is finished, and man, made in God's own likeness, is "very good." What different results follow this understanding! We're not meant to toil in vain: "Man is not made to till the soil. His birthright is dominion, not subjection" (pp. 517–518). And, "All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power" (p. 515).

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