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W's Post Scripts:LIVE TO TELL WHAT GOD HAS DONE!! (PS#1)
Insights from Cobbey Crisler, Ken Cooper and others
on select citations for
LIFE”—
the Christian Science Bible Lesson for January 20, 2019


Warren's (W’s) PS#1 on the Golden Text and on telling about the proofs of our prayers —Ken Cooper’s NARRATIVE OFFERING this week—"The Mother of Eutychus"—springs from the Golden Text and supports the theme of last week's lesson on putting prayer into pratice with gratitude. The print version, both in color and black ink, can be accessed under Downloads near the upper right corner of both online versions of CedarS posts this week. When Ken emailed this week’s contribution to me, he added:

"The Golden Text follows on so well from last week, – the need to prove our prayers. With demonstration comes gratitude, – something which requires telling and sharing. The narrative about the Mother of Eutychus takes the Golden Text as its theme – fulfilling the role of our testimonies and gratitude for all that God has given. “In the beginning was the Word” – voicing “very good”, and voice is just one demonstration of Life."

[YOU CAN SEE AND HEAR BEAUTIFULLY READ BY KEN'S WIFE, SUE, the You tube video version at https://youtu.be/YVcAHBJxsc4 ]

A full listing of all the videos can be found on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv6edwM4E2y4wJ98jGEPUOw/videos


W’s PS#2–Cobbey Crisler’s comments on “Be still and know…” in Psalms 46:10 (B4)

“Psalm 46, Verse 10. One of the simplest prescriptions for the human mind to take and one of the most difficult. The human mind resists to the hilt taking this one. “Be still and know that I [am] God.” The racket of thought quieted. It’s a very strong word, “Be still.” Jesus used those words to calm violence in nature [Mark 4:39], and also to cast out an unclean spirit [Mark 1:25]. It doesn’t belong in nature or human nature. Certainly it’s not part of the divine nature. So, “Be still” is [a] very emphatic verbal rebuke.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms”,
by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#3—Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 41:5, 8, 12, 13 (B10)
“If we're in any doubt that many of the psalms directly spoke to a need for healing, look in Verse 3, "The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness. "

The psalms are very advanced in dealing with the effects on the health of people from thought in general directed sometimes against the patient. We find this is mentioned here. [Verse 5] "Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?" There’s a science called biometry which calculates the probable duration of human life. How long, when'll he die?

Verse 7. "All that hate me whisper together: they devise my hurt."

Verse 8. “An evil disease, [say they], cleaveth fast unto him: and [now] that he lieth he shall rise up no more." There’s the verdict of incurability passed upon all of us at some point. Listen to what Dr. Bernard Seagull of the Yale School of Medicine says,"The incurable can be cured. The potential incurable diseases have dwindled down to practically nothing. Because everywhere I speak someone with an incurable disease comes up and tells me they have just gotten over it. Your body will fight for its life if you feel loved. You can also literally keep people alive by loving them."

That's what Dr. Seagull is saying as the result of his own investigation…"
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#4—Cobbey Crisler on Malachi 3:10, 11, 12 (B11)
Malachi 3: Verse 10-11 The blessing that God promises in verse 10— to “pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it”— is God saying to the lie “it is enough”. The deluge is to show the infinite supply that is able to pour through you.

Verse 11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, for he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.” This promises that God’s time is now; our grateful acknowledgement of that is essential.

Verse 12 “And all nations shall call you blessed” (praise you—creative ideas); for ye shall be a delightsome land” (empty of fear, inertia).
Comments from B. Cobbey Crisler as recorded in the margin of Warren Huff’s Bible


W’s PS#5—The applicabilty of the 4th Beatitude–from last week's lesson also–is amplified by Bible Scholar, Dr. Barry Huff in a resource podcast at www.christianscience.com at this link: Beatitude #4 (length 4:32):

Hungry? bring out the spiritual importance of Christ Jesus' promise, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." Part 5 of 9 of the Beatitudes audio series.
https://www.christianscience.com/media/youth-media-except-images/audio/beatitudes-podcast-series/the-beatitudes-blessed-are-they-who-hunger-and-thirst-after-righteousness


W’s PS#6—Cobbey Crisler on John 4: 6-30 (B14) –living water for the woman at the well
“John 4.6, Jacob's well is … concealed in a partially completed church. You cannot see the mountain to which the woman of Samaria was pointing in the story…. Dr. Bull… was the first scholar to announce that he feels he has discovered the Samaritan temple ruins on the top of Mount Gerazim which could be seen in Jesus time from the wellhead.
So, he Jesus, rests. It's about the noon hour.

John 4:7, “In comes a woman of Samaria.” While you don’t deal with Samaritans much, you also don’t deal with women that often. When you add a Samaritan to a woman, you’ve got the least likely social contact for a Jew. Jesus doesn’t concern himself at all about these artificial ghetto outlines that others have thrown around their neighbors. "He opens the conversation with the woman."

John 4:8, "the disciples have gone to the nearby city," which is probably Neapolis. It had been corrupted in Arabic as "Nablus," which you may see in the news because that's a hotbed of Palestinian unrest.
John 4:9, "So, the woman of Samaria says, How come you’re talking to me?" A woman would naturally say that because she would expect to be talking to him.

John 4: 15 The woman, not comprehending thoroughly, but nevertheless bold enough to continue asking, finally gets the practicality of Jesus' message and says, "That’s great idea. Give me this living water, and I won't take another step. Never will I have to come up with these heavy jugs and fill them with water.''

Remember, there are not too many conversations that are recorded between Jesus and anyone. The relative importance, just from the quantity of this text, stands out.

John 4:16, “Jesus says Go, call thy husband, and come hither.”
John 4:17 He knows what he's saying. He knows the whole story. So, what is he doing? He’s testing again. Here’s a Samaritan woman. What is he interested in? Is he interested in whether someone is a Jew, a Samaritan, a child,a man, a woman, a Roman centurion, a ruler of the synagogue? Does he really care? What does he really need?

What is he looking for? Receptivity. That is the universal access. It means we all have the same access if we’d only use it. Whose fault is it if we aren’t using it? It's ours. So it has nothing to do with status, culture, sex, or whatever. He's not really saying that womanhood is the best way to get to God. Or childhood, or any of those. Wherever we find receptivity it counts.

"So, '' the woman says, hedging a bit, "I don't have a husband."

John 4:18, "Whereupon Jesus said, 'How right you are. As a matter of fact, you've had five husbands, and the one you're living with right now can't exactly be called your husband '" Boy, that has a nice twentieth century ring to it.

John 4:19. All the woman can say in response to that is, "Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.” The woman is really beautiful. Jesus wouldn't spend all this time with her if he didn't see behind all this label and this stereotyped thing. There was a receptivity here that he wasn't running into regularly. He was after that. He was after womanhood as a type to replace this femaleness as a stereotype. He continued to probe in order to do this.

John 4:20. The woman said, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain.'' Boy, did that have a meaning. She's pointing to the Samaritan temple, and guess who had destroyed it? The Jews. The Maccabean rulers had destroyed the Samaritan temple which was built to resemble the Jerusalem temple. It's occupied territory. It's a little difficult to dig in an area that Jordan still claims but Israel occupies.

It was destroyed by the Jews, so you can see the irony behind what the woman said, "Our fathers worshiped …” It’s past. It's through. The Greek word that is used there is well in the past, "all wiped out." We worshiped in this mountain, but the implication, guess who stopped us, or ruined the temple? Your fathers. We have a divisive thing. We, the Samaritans, worshiped here. You, the Jews, destroyed it. That's the same thing that's going on today in the same location.

John 4:21, "Jesus said, Woman.” this is his general address to womanhood, "Believe me. the hour cometh, " still somewhat ahead, "when you won’t worry about geography in worshiping God.”

John 4:23, ''The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” Look at the definition of worship. “Worship is spiritual,” not structural, not geographical, not ritualistic. Why? Because worship of God can only properly be done by partaking of God's own nature.

John 4:24 tells us that "God is Spirit. Therefore worshiping Spirit can only be done spiritually." There's no other way to do it. How basic. By the way, when you see "a Spirit" in there. It shouldn’t be there.

Listen to what God says about it. Notice the strong tenor of his words. To translate "God is a Spirit" is the most gross perversion of the meaning. "A Spirit" implies one of a class of "pneumata," the Greek word for it. There is no trace, in the fourth gospel, of the vulgar conception of a multitude of spirits. “God is Spirit.” Mathematically one can only derive from Spirit included in it. Namely, spirituality is the derivation. Worship must be that.

Notice what is done as this woman's thought. Women weren't supposed to discuss the Scriptures. There was a first century rabbi, Eleazar, who said, "To teach a woman Scripture was like teaching her lasciviousness." That's some extreme. That was the kind of thought that was at some rabbinical extremes in the first century, not necessarily the general Jewish view, but Eleazar is considered quite a great rabbi.

Jesus is discussing intellectual problems of Scripture with a woman. This is unheard of! .

John 4:25 "That woman suddenly comes to him and says, I know that Messiah is coming.” How about that for recognition! “I know that the Messiah is coming which is called Christ.” She didn’t say that right. Why, is that in the text? Because it is for the Greeks. “I know that the Messiah when he comes will tell us all things.”

John 4:26 Jesus, in one of those rare occurrences, is discouraged from turning the fact that he was the Messiah that into an advertising campaign. Rather, he focuses on this woman and her receptivity, “He said, I that speak unto you am he.”

John 4:27, '"When the disciples come back, their only problem is that he's talking with the woman.”

John 4:28, "The woman leaves her waterpot.” That's what she'd come for, but she went away with living water. "She ran into the city"

John 4:29, "She said to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did. It’s got to be the Messiah. "

John 4:30, "The men came out," reluctantly, because they didn't want to look like they were coming out because a woman suggested it.

Do you remember when the women disciples told the men disciples that Jesus was risen? The men thought they were idle tales!

John 4:31, "In the meantime his disciples asked Jesus to eat the groceries they had bought.”

In John 4:34, "Jesus announces his meat is to do God’s will."

Remember that. That is what his food is, literally, in Greek. So when he breaks bread and distributes it to his disciples later, you know what his definition of food is. It "is to do God's will." That's the nourishment. "And to finish his work."
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


**You can buy your own transcripts of most of Cobbey Crisler’s 28 talks at this website: www.crislerlibrary.co.uk Email your order or inquiry to office@crislerlibrary.co.uk, or directly to Janet Crisler, at janetcrisler7@gmail.com
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