My dear friends - Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day." John 6: 44. When I was still in Christian Science I would have left the second sentence of this verse off, as we had no respect for the context of a scripture, and it conflicts with CS teaching. Now I love the whole Bible and crave to know the context of a verse because I know its God's Word and I don't want to miss anything!
I shared this scripture because I was about to write that this web site/forum, The Christian Way, had a major role in showing me the fallacies of Christian Science. It did. But I also know that it is only by God's grace, by His 'drawing' that I was drawn to the true Jesus of the Bible and believed in Him as Savior God. But He used the testimony of Elaine Dallas to do that. It is one of the free recordings that Christian Way offers.
I don't know who left it at my house. Probably some Christian Science friend who thought I would get a laugh out of it, maybe, since we were often like wolves tearing apart the testimony of anyone who "left" Christian Science. The first time I listened to it I barely got 10 minutes into it and then pulled it from the cassette player and tossed it on the floor thinking "what lies!" I was so disgusted with it that I intended to step on it with my shoe and crush it, and I thought I had. But a few years later I found it again. By then I had briefly spent time with some Bible-believing Christians in India, heard their testimonies of coming to faith in Christ, and believed in Him myself.
Back home in the U.S. I came across this cassette again and suddenly it all made sense. Her research through the Scriptures to check on Mary Baker Eddy's use/misuse of verses and words was eye-opening. I listened to it over and over again. It was a huge step in my realizing that what Mary Baker Eddy taught as "spiritual interpretation" was neither spiritual, nor was it interpretive. Well, it may have been 'spiritual' in the sense of evil spirits, but not in the sense of the Spirit of God - the Holy Spirit. Interpretation by definition seeks to clarify, not to rewrite something. To clarify what something actually says, not give it new meaning. I wonder what Christian Scientists would say if someone studying Mary Baker Eddy's works wrote a "Glossary" to define her words and then gave them meanings that were contradictory to her usage or her own explanations of her vocabulary. Then told you to learn his Glossary meanings and remember them (not her own face value meanings) when you read her writings. But this is what she has done to God's Word.
I would welcome thoughts about "spiritual interpretation" from others who have seen the fallacy of it. When I witness to people who are still in CS I often try to show them how dishonest it is, and to have them read aloud whole chapters (for instance from I John) and then discuss everything that is written, not just the snippets that are pulled out for CS teaching and lesson sermons, etc.
So, I just wanted to say I am grateful for Elaine Dallas's testimony which was, in God's providence, left at my house over 10 years ago! I am grateful that Christian Way made it available. Grateful that God took the dishonest, hypnotic veil of Christian Science 'spiritual interpretation' off my eyes so I could read it and believe it - all of it - with no blue chalk to edit out the parts about sin! "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2: 8-9 It's not a result of raising your consciousness to the perfect Christ consciousness, either, as that is just more "works" from which man wrongly attempts to save himself and be his own god.
Just one more thing for this introduction and then I will finish. There is so much to share and to ask! And I know that if I read all the thousands of postings I will find that others have already expressed what I am sharing. I look forward to it.
Does anyone wish that for once, on a Sunday, in all the Christian Science churches, instead of reading I John 3: 1-3, that they would dare to read I John 1: 8-10?! Now that would make a great "Golden Text"! Or that they would publish a Bible that included only the verses that they believe? Nowadays I study mostly from an English Standard Version translation of the Bible, but occasionally I grab the old leather King James Bible to find something. There are still some verses marked in blue chalk from the old "Lesson Sermons," though the chalk has mostly faded. When I find that I usually stop and read the whole chapter around the blue-chalked verse, just to see what I was missing, or to remind myself of what a lie, what a "doctrine of demons" (I Timothy 4: 1, NASB translation) it is to think you can 'spiritually interpret' away the clear message of God's Word and insert the doctrine of men, or the so-called revelation of one woman whose whole problem seemed to be that she couldn't or wouldn't admit that she was a sinner who needed to repent and be saved. "If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." I John 1: 10
"Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, which is the image of God."
Blessings to all, with inexpressible joy in knowing Him, our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
IJ