In the Christian Science Bible Lesson October 15, 2012 Issue

Ascending steps of spiritual progress

For the lesson titled "Probation After Death" from October 15 - 21, 2012

Steve Warren—Austin, Texas

The word probation   is usually understood to be a process or period in which a person’s fitness, as in work or membership in a social group, is tested—a time of proving one’s legitimate value. Through a study of Bible Lessons such as this week’s, titled “Probation After Death,” we learn that our true worth as the children of God is already established, but that we must prove that identity. The proving is our time of probation. And this Lesson examines the steps we must take to reveal our legitimate value.

The Scriptural citations in the Golden Text (Psalms 37:23) and the Responsive Reading (Proverbs 3 and I Corinthians 15) specify that when we trust in God, acknowledge Him, listen to His words, watch where we walk, and avoid evil, our steps are made firm and we begin to understand our immortal being.

Each section of this Lesson illuminates the steps of our probation. The first focuses on faith as an indispensable step toward knowing eternal Life. Faith is an assurance of things not yet seen (see Hebrews 11:1, citation 4). The physical senses have no grasp of an incorporeal God, yet faith itself is substantive evidence of a nonphysical Deity. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy describes faith as “a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood” (p. 297, cit. 5). 