In the Christian Science Bible Lesson March 28, 2011 Issue

‘Fear not’

For the lesson titled "Unreality" from March 28–April 3, 2011

By Brian Hall

This phrase, “fear not,” including one similar to it, appears four times in the Responsive Reading and Golden Text of this week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Unreality.” It sets the tone for the Lesson by offering encouragement and reassurance. However, this Lesson goes beyond these words of comfort, offering the scientific understanding of God and His power and reality—as shown through the lives of different people in the Bible—that rids our lives of even the need to be afraid. As Science and Health makes clear, “If goodness and spirituality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and cannot be the outcome of an infinite God, good” (p. 277, citation 1). When our thoughts are grounded in that truth, we realize that there is nothing to fear. 

One of the people who illustrates this is Abraham, whom we first meet as Abram in Genesis 12 (cit. 5). He is called by God to leave his homeland and travel to a new place at the age of 75 (verse 4). What a sense of faith and trust he must have had to undertake a journey of that nature at that stage in his life. Abraham demonstrated that he could do what God requested of him. His age was not a factor in his ability to be obedient. God had reassured him, “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Gen. 15:1, cit. 6). 

Abraham could not have taken up a journey such as he did if he thought he was “too old,” or if he thought the strength to complete it came from his body. Science and Health provides insight into what happens when we refuse to allow material limitations to bar progress: “To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true” (p. 428, cit. 10).

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