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Bible Lessons

Lesson I.-July 1.

ESUS AND THE CHILDREN.-Matt. 18: 1-14. LESSON KEY-NOTE:-"It is not the will of my Father in the heavens that in his presence one of the least of these should be lost."

Time: Autumn of A. D. 29, shortly after the transfiguration.

Place: A house in Capernaum; probably Peter's residence.

Jesus seems to have taken a quiet interest in children. He did not fuss around about how much he loved them. He and the children just understood eachother as they were on the same plane. They were drawn together naturally.

Jesus' disciples had been disputing about who would occupy the highest offices in the kingdom which they believed Jesus was about to establish. Jesus heard them and asked them about it.

1-6. The little child was Jesus' object lesson. It was not ambitious for preferment. It was innocent and pure hearted. It was simple and sincere in its ways. It was trusting and confiding. It was like love, believing all things and seeking not to further selfish interests.

He said, you are all wrong about this matter. You must cease to be as you are and be all this little one is before you can ever get inside the gate, to say nothing of holding offices. Greatness consists in what you are and not in the official positions you occupy. Greatness is in simple, lowly service with implicit trust in God. This is the Christ spirit. To defile one of these clear

springs of Christ spirit in childhood is worse than to be drowned in the sea. This is just as true now.

7, 8, 9. Man is weak yet and subject to temptation. This condition must continue and prevail until he grows stronger. But, alas for the one who sees the weakness of another and puts a snare in his way to cause him to fall!

Even that which is the nearest to you in your affections must not be permitted to ensnare you into wrong-doing. Verses 8 and 9 are symbolical-not to be taken literally. The words here rendered "hell fire" are geennan tou puros, "Gehenna of fire". They point symbolically to the valley of Hinnom as a type of purifying, since the offal and refuse of the city were burned there. Error is cleansed out by suffering.

10-14. (Verse 11 is not in the best originals.) The guardian angels of the pure in heart see God always. Nothing is ever lost. It is not the Father's will that the very humblest and lowest and meanest of all should perish. They therefore will not. All the preaching we have had about lost souls is error.

Lesson II.-July 8.

THE DUTY OF FORGIVENESS.-Matt. 18:21-35. LESSON KEY-NOTE: "Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors."

Time: Immediately following the incidents of last lesson.

Place: Capernaum.

21, 22. The teaching of Jesus here is practically that you have no business holding a grudge against another at all. You should not hold the thought that others can wrong you. Of course, if a man should offend me purposely and ask me to forgive him, and then do it again and again, asking pardon each time, I would be justified in concluding him not sincere and using

some means to stop him. If this were to be repeated up to 77 times, I would justly conclude he was either crazy or a fiend and take measures to have him confined. So the statement is not to be taken literally, but the teaching is that we have nothing to forgive, must not count tires nor take offense at all. Not even God can forgive in the sense of allowing an error to go unrequited; and God cannot take offense at anything. The entire doctrine of forgiveness must be revised. With its old meaning the word must be erased from our vocabulary.

23-45. The teaching of all this part of our lesson, this parable, is that we receive as we give, that we make our own conditions, that we ourselves are responsible for our states and degrees of unfoldment.

The key-note of the lesson is only a statement of this doctrine in brief. As we open to bless the world we receive blessing from the Father. The affirmation is put in the form of a request to teach expectancy, not to beg God to do it. It would be folly to beg God to do that which is already the law of Truth. The words mean, We have already erased from our minds all grudge, all resentment, all anger, all claims for retribution against men; therefore we expect and are ready for the same attitude of the Universal toward us.

Our change must come first. Our readiness must be in evidence. Only then can we receive. When you do one a favor and he or she turns on you later and snarls at you, you may be sure he or she was not ready for the good you offered. It was pearls cast before swine. Jesus said not to do this, and he was right about it. Don't be eager to make sacrifices for people -wait until they are ready.

Lesson III.-July 15.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN.-Luke 10: 25-37.
LESSON KEY-NOTE:-"Happy the merciful, because

they will receive mercies."

Time: Nov. or Dec., A. D. 29.

Place: Perea, beyond the Jordan and on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.

25-29. The lawyer here mentioned was a student and teacher of the Mosaic or Jewish law. "Tempted" is not the right word to use here. He desired only to test Jesus' teaching to see if it was in accord with the Mosaic law. It was characteristic of Jesus to have him answer his own question. The answer here embodies much. It includes two parts and necessarily in the order named. The order cannot be reversed. 1. Let your entire personal being, with all your faculties and life centers, be absorbed and imbued by and with God love, the Substance Love, the Love that is Godthat is, be it personified. Then follows 2. Irradiate this love to bless the world, to make it a better place to live in. This is the whole gospel.

The lawyer had asked how to inherit eternal lifethat is to come into possession of it by right of birth. The answer adduced was all about being and doingnot of generation. And the promise was, "Thou shalt live.' This means that life is a possibility in you because of your origin, and you must appropriate and perpetuate it as your possession by your own thought and conduct. You have already inherited all you may.

29-37. In order to be sure about the purport of Jesus' answer, the lawyer asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus again made him answer his own question.

This parable has for its message:-Those who struggle with needs which they have not been able to overcome should have your aid, whether you ever saw them before or not. The true neighborly feeling is that which goes out to meet and fill real needs regardless of who the needy one is or where he lives.

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