IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON November 1, 2010 Issue

ONLY BLESSED, NEVER CURSED

CHRISTA KREUTZ

Because next week's Kids' issue won't include this column, we're providing two in this issue.

THIS WEEK'S BIBLE LESSON opens and closes with statements of God's blessings, first from Genesis 1 (Section I, citation 1) and then from Numbers 6 (Sect. V, cit. 22). This reinforces the fact that we are blessed only, and never cursed; that we are created by God, not descendants of Adam and Eve. The Lesson invites us to "shake off the dust" of materiality and recognize that we are the blessed image of God.

At the time the first creation story was written, to be the "image of God" (Gen. 1:27, cit. 1) meant to represent God on earth, a job normally saved for kings. Here however, it is a role assigned to all humankind (see Fretheim, "The Book of Genesis," The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 1, 1994, p. 345). This story also presents God as sovereign and the only Creator. In the chapter on "Genesis" in Science and Health this creation is described in this way: "All that is made is the work of God, and all is good" (p. 521, cit. 2).