A Gleam

BY SARAH M. KELLY

"The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence; for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected" (Luke, 13:31, 32).

Remembering what Jesus said of the spirituality and the permanence of his own words, we may well assume that in the passage quoted, as in so many others containing his sayings, the true spiritual meaning lies beneath the surface. In fact, it seems as though he gave the warning not to accept the literal interpretation here, for he says in the next verse, "Nevertheless, I must walk to-day, and tomorrow, and the day following." In the revised version, for the word perfected the words end my course are substituted from the margin and so, literally construed, verses 32 and 33 might seem to contradict each other.

If the three days referred to are taken to mean stages of spiritual growth, then Jesus' reply to the Pharisees contains rule for attaining perfection. The stages of casting out devils (evils) and doing cures must precede the final state of being perfected. Also this, the fox—the sly, false claim that tries to intercept, confuse, and disannul Truth—is met by the absolute statement: I (Principle, Truth) do cast out evil and cure all the ills of the flesh, and therefore the perfection of God and of His reflection, man, shall appear.

Superficial reading may not reveal it, but careful study of this text finds it to be correlative to that other answer of Jesus to Thomas which we love so well and so often quote (John, 14:6): "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

This illustrates the profundity of the Scriptures and also how the inspiration that is necessary to read them understandingly comes through Christian Science as set forth in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," our beloved text-book.

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A Christian Science Library

March 8, 1900

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