WEDNESDAY BIBLE READINGS
JUNE 11TH, 2025 FROM THE BIBLE
Who steps forward for justice amid the wrongdoers? Who stands strong against those spreading iniquity? ...
... the LORD is my refuge; ...
... truly, the LORD our God defeats every foe.
(Psalms of Hope 94:16, 22, 23 paraphrased)
... When adversity overwhelms, the Spirit of the Lord raises a shield. ¶ And the Redeemer reaches Zion, ... declares the LORD. ...
Rise, shine; for your light radiates, ...
... the LORD shines upon you, and His glory is visible on you.
(Isaiah Reflections 59:19, 20, 60:1, 2 paraphrased)
¶ Saul placed his armor on David, ...
... And David replied, I cannot move with these, for I have not tested them. And so he removed them. ...
Faced by the Philistine, David declared, You come to me with weapons, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, ...
Today the LORD will give you into my hands; ...
And all will know that victory belongs to the LORD—not by sword or spear.
(Adapted from I Samuel 17:38–47)
Whoever abides in the shelter of the Most High rests in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my sanctuary and strength; my God, ...
He delivers you from hidden dangers, ...
... His truth is your shield and protection. ...
For He sends His angels to guard you, ...
They uphold you, so you won't stumble. ...
Because you love Him, He rescues you: ...
(Psalm Meditations 91:1–14)
... God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with Holy Spirit and power: who went about doing good, healing all oppressed; for God was with him.
(Acts 10:38 paraphrased)
And Jesus, after baptism, ascended from the water: ...
Then the tempter brought him to the holy city, placed him on the temple's highest point, and said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down—it is written, 'He will command His angels to guard you.' ...
Again, the tempter showed him all the world's kingdoms, ...
Offered everything if Jesus would worship him. Jesus answered, Go away, Satan! It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.' Then the tempter left, and angels attended him.
(Matthew 3:16–4:11 retold)
Submit to God. Stand firm against evil, and it will retreat.
(James 4:7 summary)
¶ They brought to him one afflicted, blind, and mute—and he healed the person, ...
And all were amazed, ...
But some said, He casts out demons by demonic power. Jesus said, Every divided house falls: If Satan opposes himself, his realm fails. ...
But if I dispel evil by God's Spirit, then God's kingdom has come near. How can you rob a strong man's house unless you first subdue him? Then you can plunder his goods.
(Matthew 12:22–29 paraphrase)
¶ Jesus went with his followers to Gethsemane, saying, Sit here while I pray. ...
... ¶ And while Jesus spoke, Judas arrived with a crowd, ...
... and they seized Jesus, ...
A disciple struck a servant, removing his ear. Jesus said, Put your sword away: those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
(Matthew 26:36–52 retold)
Night is nearly over; day is at hand. Cast off darkness, wear the armor of light. Walk uprightly, ... not with conflict or envy. Instead, put on Christ ...
(Romans 13:12–14 condensed)
Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. ...
Embrace the whole armor of God: truth around your waist, righteousness as your breastplate; feet ready for peace; above all, the shield of faith against evil; helmet of salvation; the Spirit's sword—the Word of God.
(Ephesians 6:10–17, adapted)
I urge you by Christ's gentleness, ...
Though we live in the world, we don't wage war by its ways. Our weapons are not physical but mighty through God, able to pull down strongholds—capturing thoughts into Christ's obedience.
(II Corinthians 10:1–5 paraphrased)
In God alone is my salvation and honor: my shelter and strength, my hope. Trust in Him always; pour out your heart before Him. ...
God has spoken—power belongs to Him.
(Psalms 62:7–11 summary)
SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES BY MARY BAKER EDDY
God never punishes man for doing right, for honest labor, or for deeds of kindness, though they expose him to fatigue, cold, heat, contagion. If man seems to incur the penalty through matter, this is but a belief of mortal mind, not an enactment of wisdom, and man has only to enter his protest against this belief in order to annul it. Through this action of thought and its results upon the body, the student will prove to himself, by small beginnings, the grand verities of Christian Science.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 384:6)
By adhering to the realities of eternal existence, — instead of reading disquisitions on the inconsistent supposition that death comes in obedience to the law of life, and that God punishes man for doing good, — one cannot suffer as the result of any labor of love, but grows stronger because of it.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 387:19–24)
In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 242:15–20 In)
When the final physical and moral effects of Christian Science are fully apprehended, the conflict between truth and error, understanding and belief, Science and material sense, foreshadowed by the prophets and inaugurated by Jesus, will cease, and spiritual harmony reign. The lightnings and thunderbolts of error may burst and flash till the cloud is cleared and the tumult dies away in the distance. Then the raindrops of divinity refresh the earth. As St. Paul says: "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (of Spirit).
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 288:10)
Material belief is slow to acknowledge what the spiritual fact implies. The truth is the centre of all religion. It commands sure entrance into the realm of Love.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 20:24–27)
If it is true that man lives, this fact can never change in Science to the opposite belief that man dies. Life is the law of Soul, even the law of the spirit of Truth, and Soul is never without its representative. Man's individual being can no more die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 427:1–7)
Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 75:12)
If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false sense. Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action? Jesus said: "Destroy this temple [body], and in three days I [Mind] will raise it up;" and he did this for tired humanity's reassurance.
Is it not a species of infidelity to believe that so great a work as the Messiah's was done for himself or for God, who needed no help from Jesus' example to preserve the eternal harmony? But mortals did need this help, and Jesus pointed the way for them. Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 493:28–14)
Denial of the possibility of Christian healing robs Christianity of the very element, which gave it divine force and its astonishing and unequalled success in the first century.
The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord, — not because this Science is supernatural or preternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of God, good. Jesus said: "I knew that Thou hearest me always;" and he raised Lazarus from the dead, stilled the tempest, healed the sick, walked on the water. There is divine authority for believing in the superiority of spiritual power over material resistance.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 134:17–30)
The crude creations of mortal thought must finally give place to the glorious forms which we sometimes behold in the camera of divine Mind, when the mental picture is spiritual and eternal. Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 264:3–10)
Jesus cast out evil spirits, or false beliefs. ... by the one Spirit. He said: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He never described disease, so far as can be learned from the Gospels, but he healed disease.
The unscientific practitioner says: "You are ill. Your brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body is weak, and it must be strengthened. You have nervous prostration, and must be treated for it." Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of intelligence and asserting that Mind controls body and brain.
Mind-science teaches that mortals need "not be weary in well doing." It dissipates fatigue in doing good. Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us. We have strength in proportion to our apprehension of the truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving utterance to truth.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 79:17 (only), 19–3 by)
When we reach our limits of mental endurance, we conclude that intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far; but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by the assurances of immortality, opposed to mortality.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 387:5)
In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, never a return to positions outgrown.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 74:29–30)
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE HYNALS
God is our refuge and defense,
In trouble our unfailing aid;
Secure in His omnipotence,
What foe can make our heart afraid?
There is a river pure and bright,
Whose streams make glad the heavenly plains;
Where, in eternity of light,
The city of our God remains.
Built by the word of His command,
With His unclouded presence blest,
Firm as His throne the bulwarks stand;
There is our home, our hope, our rest.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 80)
O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.
Love is our refuge; only with mine eye
Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:
His habitation high is here, and nigh,
His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.
O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill,—since God is good, and loss is gain.
Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
"Lo, I am with you alway,"—watch and pray.
No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven's aftersmile earth's tear-drops gain,
And mother finds her home and heav'nly rest.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 208)
How gentle God's commands,
How kind His precepts are;
Come, cast your burdens on the Lord,
And trust His constant care.
Beneath His watchful eye
His saints securely dwell;
That hand which bears creation up
Shall guard His children well.
His goodness stands approved,
Unchanged from day to day:
I drop my burden at His feet,
And bear a song away.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 124)
