Subject: Honesty
Golden text: Proverbs 11:1 New International version, copyright by Biblica Inc.
The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him.
Exodus 18:13-22
The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. 14 When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?”
15 Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. 16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.”
17 Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. 18 You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. 19 Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. 20 Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. 21 But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22 Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you.
21st Century Science and Health, copyright by Cheryl Petersen
Teachers who understand in a sufficient degree the Principle of Mind-healing, point out error as well as truth. They point out the wrong as well as the right practice. Love for God and humanity is the true incentive in both healing and teaching. Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives elevate thought, which gives strength and freedom to speech and action. Love is priestess at the altar of Truth. Wait patiently for divine Love to move the human mind and form the perfect concept. “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”[1]
Do not dismiss students at the close of a class term, feeling that you have done enough. Let your compassionate care and sound counsels support your student’s feeble footsteps until they walk firmly in the straight and narrow way. The superiority of spiritual power over sensuous power is the central point of divine Science. Remember, the letter and the mental affirmations only assist human beings in connecting thought with the spirit of Truth and Love, which heals the sick and the sinner.
Mental states of self-condemnation and guilt, or a hesitant and doubting trust in Truth, are unsuitable for healing the sick. Such mindsets indicate weakness instead of strength. This is why it is necessary to be spiritually minded yourself to teach this Science of healing. You must utilize the moral might of Mind in order to walk over the waves of error and support your assertions by demonstration. If you yourself are lost in the belief and fear of disease or sin, and, if knowing the remedy, you fail to use the energies of Mind in your own behalf, you can exercise little or no power to help others. “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”[2]
Students, who receive their knowledge of Mind-Science or metaphysical healing from a human teacher, may be mistaken in judgment and demonstration, but God cannot mistake. God selects for the highest service people who have advanced into such a condition that they know any perversion of the mission is impossible. The All-wise does not grant trusts upon the unworthy. When Love commissions a messenger, it is one who is spiritually near Soul. No person can misuse this mental power if they are taught of God to discern it.
This strong point in divine Science is not to be overlooked—that “a spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next.”[3] The more expansive and inclusive your success is in the Science of mental healing and teaching, the more impossible it will become for you intentionally to influence humankind adverse to its highest hope and achievement.
Teaching or practicing in the name of Truth, but contrary to its spirit or rule, is most dangerous quackery. Strict adherence to the divine Principle and rules of the scientific method has secured the only success of the students of divine Science. Only this on-going integrity is worthy of prominence in the community, worthy of a reputation experimentally justified by the people’s efforts. People who affirm that there is more than one Principle and method of demonstrating divine Science are mistaken, whether they do so ignorantly or intentionally. Whoever believes in more than one Principle, automatically separate themselves from the true conception of spiritual scientific healing and its possible manifestation.
Luke 16:1-12
Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’
3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’
5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 “‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.
“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’
7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
“‘A thousand bushelsof wheat,’ he replied.
“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’
8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
21st Century Science and Health
The commitment of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible. Exceptions only confirm this rule, proving that failure is occasioned by a strong faith in failure.
If athletes believed it impossible to accomplish record-breaking feats, they could never do it. Their belief that they can achieve something spectacular gives their thought forces, called muscles, the flexibility and power which the unscientific might attribute to adrenaline or genes. Fear must disappear before the power of putting resolve into action can appear.
Attack the evils of dishonesty and craftiness, not the people.
The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to Spirit’s government of the universe and us. Business professionals, scholars, and ordinary people have found that divine Science increases their perseverance and mental powers. The knowledge of spiritual Science expands people’s perception of character, gives them alertness and the ability to be thorough and multitask usefully. The human mind, inspired with spiritual understanding, becomes more resilient and is capable of increased stamina. The human mind can escape somewhat from itself and won’t require so much sleep. Knowledge of the Science of being develops our dormant abilities and potential. Spiritual discernment opens the mind and we attain access to far-reaching and grand realms, we are elevated into our natural state of insightfulness and perspicacity.
I Peter 5:1-7
To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.
5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
21st Century Science and Health
It is only productive to exercise human will-power in subordination to Truth. Human-will has the tendency to misguide our decisions and bring out inferior tendencies. Mistaken human wills injure our self and others. It is the function of spiritual sense to direct man and woman aright.
The human attitudes of dishonesty, sensuality, greed, revenge, and malice, cannot heal the sick. Thoughts that try to control another person are crude tendencies and by no means the mental qualities which heal. The hypnotizer employs one error to destroy another. The mental mal-practitioner heals sickness through a belief, when it was a belief which originally caused the sickness. This is a case of a greater error overcoming a lesser. The greater error thereafter occupies the ground, leaving the case worse than before.
Instinct is better than misguided reason, even as nature declares. The violet lifts her blue eye to greet the early spring. Tree leaves clap their hands in the wind. The snowbird sings while securing a summer residence, never minding wet cold feet. Human beings on the other hand, overlook instinct and make things difficult. Earth’s atmosphere is kinder than the atmosphere of human mind—kinder than the milieu crowded with thoughts of perfectionisms, flus, and allergies. Sun spots, contagion, and sickness are produced solely by human theories.
Human mind procreates its own phenomena and then credits them to something else—like a kitten glancing into the mirror at itself and thinking it sees another kitten.
Asceticism can take form in the practice of extreme self-denial, self-mortification, rigorous abstinence, or exceedingly strict religious exercises, none of which guarantee growth in grace or spirituality.
Physicians whom the sick employ in their helplessness should be models of integrity. They should be wise spiritual guides to health and hope. To the frightened patient on the brink of death, physicians can be prepared to share an understanding of the Truth which is Life and perpetuates being. When the soul is willing and the flesh is weak, the patient may be willing to plant their feet on the rock of the true idea of spiritual power.
Let your thought embrace the enduring, the honest, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience according to how often they occupy your thoughts.
[1] James 1:4
[2] Matt. 7:5; Luke 6:41–42 (NRSV)
[3] James 3:11 (The Message)
Contemporary Christian Science Bible Study 