Flee from idolatry
For the Lesson titled "Matter" from September 16 - 22, 2013
This Christian Science Bible Lesson, titled “Matter,” is an exercise in discerning the relevancy of the biblical idea of “idolatry” to our contemporary lives. Of course, most of us don’t worship stone gods on nearby hillsides, as people did in scriptural times. If, however, contemporary idols can be anything to which one looks for fulfillment besides God, then count the ways: a desire for nonstop entertainment (TV, movies, sports, etc.), human power and achievement seen in lusting after the latest sports car, idolizing a fashion model’s figure.
This Lesson reveals idolatry at its most fundamental level: a conviction that matter is real—with all the substance, intelligence, and creative power that implies. Each section addresses an aspect of matter’s claims, then demolishes those assumptions based on biblical truths and “the scientific statement of being” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 468 , citation 1).
The Golden Text lays the logic for what follows: “We know that an idol stands for something that does not really exist; we know that there is only the one God” (I Corinthians 8:4, Good News Translation).
In Section 1, Science and Health elucidates: “The first idolatry was faith in matter” (p. 146 , cit. 2). Such faith is based on theories that reveal the slippery slope on which it rests, namely: “(1) that all is matter; (2) that matter originates in Mind, and is as real as Mind, possessing intelligence and life” (p. 269 , cit. 5).
The second section builds on the parable of the wheat and the tares (see Matthew 13 , cit. 7), illustrating the need to discern between Spirit and matter, between what one accepts as reality to “gather” (garner, collect) into one’s consciousness, and those beliefs that need to be “burned” (destroyed, discarded).
When matter (the tares or weeds) is invested with power, either we believe matter self-evolves or we attribute its origin to Spirit, thus making Spirit answerable for matter’s accompanying calamities (see Science and Health, p. 119 , cit. 11).
To illustrate how matter’s flimsy nothingness must recede in the presence of Spirit’s all-power, the third section tells of the encounter between Christ Jesus and a paralytic of 38 years (see John 5 , cit. 10). Convinced of the recuperative powers of a body of water if only someone would get him there, the man instead experiences Spirit’s immediate healing when Jesus commands him to stand up and walk.
Steps are shown for how we can experience such radical clarity as Jesus, proving Spirit to be the scientifically real and matter the unreal. It is by “forsaking matter for Spirit.” As we do, immediate blessings are realized today as they were centuries ago, such as “enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace” (Science and Health, p. 265 , cit. 17).
When Jesus heals the woman “bowed together,” he proves again that no one has to bow down to matter as the source and condition of life (Luke 13 , cit. 16).
So if we’re wise, we’ll take Paul’s advice to “flee from idolatry” (I Corinthians 10:14 , cit. 19), so we, too, can prove the nothingness of matter and supremacy of Spirit.
