IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON December 6, 2010 Issue

THE ULTIMATE SHEPHERD

OLENE CARROLL

A CERTAIN KING found himself exiled for decades in a foreign land, another man was quarantined beyond the city limits, and still others were tossed about endlessly in deep waters. Yet, in this week's Bible Lesson, titled "God the Preserver of Man," all were saved.

Nothing speaks protection like a shepherd from Bible times. Through the mouth of Ezekiel, God, the ultimate Shepherd, makes numerous promises to His exiled people that He will seek them out, gather them together, lead them out of exile, then feed and secure them in their homeland (see Ezek., chap. 34, citation 19).

See how these promises are fulfilled in the 23rd Psalm, which is illumined in Science and Health (see p. 577, cit. 30). God is so much more than a simple shepherd. And Mary Baker Eddy lifts readers to an expanded understanding of the term shepherd by substituting the word Love, the "spiritual sense of Deity." Elsewhere she wrote: "The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space" (p. 520, cit. 3). In the words of Jeremiah, "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" (23:24, cit. 3); and as theologian Matthew Henry wrote 300 years ago, "No place can either include him or exclude him."