IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON February 18, 2008 Issue

A weekly column in which writers discuss Bible passages that appear in the Christian Science Bible Lessons.

GOD'S INFINITE POWER—RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE

NANCY FISCHER

RIGHT FROM THE START, this Christian Science Bible Lesson's Golden Text emphatically states that the divine Mind's power is "great" and God's "understanding is infinite" (Ps. 147:5). This idea runs throughout the Lesson, and power in this context certainly includes strength, force, and authority. Yet most dictionaries give a very simple but comprehensive definition first: "The ability to do something; to act or produce an effect." Mind and God are one. And the Lesson's six sections disclose the profound effects that follow the understanding of Mind's infinitude—greater peace and harmony grace everything from life's tiniest details to the movement of galaxies.

The Responsive Reading sets the stage for a deepening view of Mind as all-powerful Cause and transformation as its effect. Daniel 2:20–22 includes a series of active verbs showing how divine wisdom acts: God changes, removes, sets up, gives, reveals, and knows. Then, verses from Proverb 8 present God's dramatic call to instruction. Strong's English/Hebrew dictionary shows that within the definitions of the Hebrew words translated into English as wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and instruction, there are additional qualities: wit, discretion, prudence, awareness, advisement, purpose, meaning, ability, intellect, enterprise.

It's an adventure to discover the many ways in which the presence of infinite, omnipotent Mind can be felt in human lives. For instance, in the first section the Apostle Paul states to the Romans that "of him [God], and through him, and to him, are all things." The New English Bible offers this description, through Paul's insight, of the divine Mind's nature and effect: "Source, Guide, and Goal of all that is" (Rom. 11:36).