Teaching spirituality in Sunday School
As a longtime Sunday School teacher, I’ve regularly taught the different names for God given in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Of the seven synonyms for God listed, Spirit has often been one that students in my classes have found challenging to grasp. I understand this—Mind, for instance, can be described using concepts relating to intelligence; Love can be seen as the source of affection and a desire for good; and Life involves activity and vitality. However, one vital aspect of Spirit is that God is not material, and this is difficult to explain using material terms and concepts.
To me, individuals in the Bible such as Jacob; Moses; Elijah; Jesus’ mother, Mary; and Peter provide the best lessons for understanding Spirit, as they grew a lot in learning how to live spiritual lives. In teaching these stories, I’ve found it useful to look at them through the lens of “the three great verities of Spirit”—omnipotence or all-power, omnipresence or all-presence, and omniscience or all-knowingness (Science and Health, pp. 109–110).
I’ve found the three great verities to be useful in helping us understand what is actually real versus what only seems to be real. The understanding that Spirit has all power enables us to realize that any power that matter seems to have is just an illusion. Knowing that Spirit is all presence, that “. . . there is no place where God is not” (Science and Health, p. 480), helps us see that matter isn’t as solidly present as it seems to be. Finally, as we recognize that Spirit knows all, sees all, and understands all, we attribute no intelligence or wisdom at all to matter.
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