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You're beautiful!
For the Lesson titled "Soul" from August 11 - 17, 2014
As you study this week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Soul,” you may start seeing yourself, and everyone, as more beautiful. But we’re not talking physical beauty here. Instead, the Lesson points to the loveliness that Soul, or God, confers on each of us as part of His-Her creation. The Golden Text is actually a prayer for this spiritual beauty: “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” (Psalms 90:17). According to several modern Bible translations, beauty refers to “favor,” or “countenance,” bringing out that you and I reflect the “face” of God. The New International Version, for instance, says, “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us.”
The Responsive Reading enlarges on this concept of spiritual beauty, ending with the Psalmist’s exhortation, “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psalms 96:9). And the Living Bible’s version, “Worship the Lord with the beauty of holy lives,” tells us that beauty is something we need to live, not just talk about.
Another clue about the meaning of Soul’s beauty comes in Section 1, with this passage: “He [God] hath made every thing beautiful in his time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, citation 5). Here beautiful means “good” in the all-embracing spiritual sense that the writer of the first chapter of Genesis expresses: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (verse 31). Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy explains that this beautiful goodness comes from God alone: “Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color” (p. 247, cit. 6).
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August 11, 2014 issue
View Issue-
Letters
Callie, Susan Harding, Eileen Stoecklin, Dorothy Daugherty
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Out of the darkness of addiction
Jeff Rice
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Divine protection at the artillery range
Steven Jareo
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To win 'the right of way'
Chaylee Posson
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What I learned about true balance
Lynne Darner
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"...as a mirror shows us"
Photograph by Steve Ryf
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You're beautiful!
Mary Trammell
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The door of blessings opened
Himanshu Dhand
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From fear to freedom
Melissa Workman
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Overcoming contagion
Norma Minatta
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The best roadside assistance
Kristen Shoemake
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Child's breathing problem healed
Amelia Trevelyan
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'My heart is singing'
Nicki Hudson
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Go with the flow
The Editors