Responsive Reading: II Corinthians 13 : 5, 8 • II Corinthians 4 : 1, 2, 6

5.     Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.

8.     For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.

1.     Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;

2.     But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

6.     For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

1. Psalm 25 : 5

5     Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

2. Zechariah 1 : 1-6

1     In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

2     The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers.

3     Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.

4     Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith the Lord.

5     Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?

6     But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, Like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.

3. Zechariah 2 : 10, 11

10     Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.

11     And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee.

4. Zechariah 4 : 6 (Not)

6     Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

5. Zechariah 7 : 8-12 (to 2nd ,), 13 (Therefore) only, 14 (I)

8     And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying,

9     Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:

10     And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

11     But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.

12     Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone,

13     Therefore

14     I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate.

6. Zechariah 8 : 3, 7, 8, 16, 17, 19 (therefore)-21, 23 (We)

3     Thus saith the Lord; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain.

7     Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country;

8     And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.

16     These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:

17     And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord.

19     …therefore love the truth and peace.

20     Thus saith the Lord of hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities:

21     And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts: I will go also.

23     We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.

7. Luke 4 : 14 (to :), 33-39

14     And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee:

33     And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice,

34     Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.

35     And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.

36     And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.

37     And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.

38     And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her.

39     And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.

8. Ephesians 1 : 1 (to 2nd ,)

1     Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,

9. Ephesians 4 : 1, 13-15, 23-25

1     I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

13     Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14     That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

15     But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

23     And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

24     And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

25     Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.

1. 2 : 16-17

Goodness attains the demonstration of Truth.

2. 3 : 32-5

While the heart is far from divine Truth and Love, we cannot conceal the ingratitude of barren lives.

What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds.

3. 232 : 26-31

In the sacred sanctuary of Truth are voices of solemn import, but we heed them not. It is only when the so-called pleasures and pains of sense pass away in our lives, that we find unquestionable signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to spiritual life.

4. 593 : 4-5

Prophet. A spiritual seer; disappearance of material sense before the conscious facts of spiritual Truth.

5. 308 : 14-15

The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man.

6. 213 : 30-4

Before human knowledge dipped to its depths into a false sense of things, — into belief in material origins which discard the one Mind and true source of being, — it is possible that the impressions from Truth were as distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the primitive prophets. If the medium of hearing is wholly spiritual, it is normal and indestructible.

7. 388 : 1-4

The Christian martyrs were prophets of Christian Science. Through the uplifting and consecrating power of divine Truth, they obtained a victory over the corporeal senses, a victory which Science alone can explain.

8. 225 : 5-13

You may know when first Truth leads by the fewness and faithfulness of its followers. Thus it is that the march of time bears onward freedom's banner. The powers of this world will fight, and will command their sentinels not to let truth pass the guard until it subscribes to their systems; but Science, heeding not the pointed bayonet, marches on. There is always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth's standard.

9. 238 : 12-13, 15-21

To fall away from Truth in times of persecution, shows that we never understood Truth. …

Unimproved opportunities will rebuke us when we attempt to claim the benefits of an experience we have not made our own, try to reap the harvest we have not sown, and wish to enter unlawfully into the labors of others. Truth often remains unsought, until we seek this remedy for human woe because we suffer severely from error.

10. 28 : 24-31

To suppose that persecution for righteousness' sake belongs to the past, and that Christianity to-day is at peace with the world because it is honored by sects and societies, is to mistake the very nature of religion. Error repeats itself. The trials encountered by prophet, disciple, and apostle, "of whom the world was not worthy," await, in some form, every pioneer of truth.

11. 540 : 11-16

In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin.

12. 30 : 19-25

As the individual ideal of Truth, Christ Jesus came to rebuke rabbinical error and all sin, sickness, and death, — to point out the way of Truth and Life. This ideal was demonstrated throughout the whole earthly career of Jesus, showing the difference between the offspring of Soul and of material sense, of Truth and of error.

13. 229 : 23-8

If God causes man to be sick, sickness must be good, and its opposite, health, must be evil, for all that He makes is good and will stand forever. If the transgression of God's law produces sickness, it is right to be sick; and we cannot if we would, and should not if we could, annul the decrees of wisdom. It is the transgression of a belief of mortal mind, not of a law of matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sickness. The remedy is Truth, not matter, — the truth that disease is unreal.

If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or condition of Truth? But if sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick.

14. 120 : 15-24

Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health. The Science of Mind-healing shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. Therefore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testimony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick, overthrows false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.

15. 242 : 9-21

There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality — to have no other consciousness of life — than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses.

Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. 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.

The vesture of Life is Truth.

16. 255 : 1-6

Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. "Let there be light," is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.