Editorial January 4, 2016 Issue

The Christian Science Bible Lesson and universal fellowship

Lyle Young

All those around the world who study the Christian Science Bible Lesson during the week, or attend Christian Science Sunday church services where that Lesson is read, are participating in a universal fellowship that is bringing the message of universal salvation to humanity.

In 1895 Mary Baker Eddy ordained the Bible and her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as the Pastor of her Church. Further, a system was developed whereby passages from those books comprise a weekly Bible Lesson on one of 26 subjects that Mrs. Eddy established. The same 26 subjects are covered and repeated once, annually. However, the content of every single Lesson is different. The Bible Lesson Committee of The Mother Church is charged with composing these Lessons, which they do with the greatest of care, more than a year in advance, and the Lessons are readied for study in multiple languages. Thus, long before the local preparation for the Sunday service, many people have already given much prayer to making each of the Sunday services around the world healing and uplifting.

Article III, Section 1, of the Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy sets a tone for everyone’s contribution to Sunday services: “The Readers of The Mother Church and of all its branch churches must devote a suitable portion of their time to preparation for the reading of the Sunday lesson,—a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends. They must keep themselves unspotted from the world,—uncontaminated with evil,—that the mental atmosphere they exhale shall promote health and holiness, even that spiritual animus so universally needed” (p. 31).