Bible Study from November 6th, 2021

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… this grace of the Spirit in regeneration, like the wind, is powerful and irresistible; it carries all before it; there is no withstanding it; it throws down Satan’s strong holds, demolishes the fortifications of sin; the whole posse of hell, and the corruptions of a man’s heart, are not a match for it; when the Spirit works, who can let?

— Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

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ARTICLE “Oneness” Collected Writings by Bicknell Young

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So is every one that is born of the Spirit.—The sense is, In this manner is every one (born) who is born of the Spirit. The universality is again emphatically asserted. Individual spiritual life depends upon individual spiritual birth. The baptism of the Spirit is needed for all. Now, indeed, coming as a fire burning in men’s hearts, consuming the chaff of sin, while He purifies and stores up all that is true and good; now coming as in a moment, and arresting a man in a course of evil, revealing the iniquity of sin, and giving the power to reform; now coming as the gradual dawning of day upon the youthful soul who has never been wholly without it; here in a sermon or a prayer, there in the lessons of childhood; now by the example of a noble life or the lessons of history; again in the study of Scripture or the truths written on the page of nature — the Spirit breatheth where it willeth. We may not limit His action, but by His action must every one be born again.

— Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers for John 3

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Gratitude: We are not grateful to God. That would be two, and Being is one. God is not giving anything to me, but He is expressing Himself as me. Therefore I enjoy fully the love, goodness and perfection which constitute Being. I am not grateful to God. True gratitude is appreciation of everything from the standpoint of the Truth. God is the highest sense of light, love and beauty in an eternal and indestructible way, without any sense of time and person.

— Notes from a Class by Laura Sargent

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But when we close our eyes and, so far as possible, silence the voice of the material senses, we see how immeasurable and boundless man is. We see that he is not incased in a body of fixed dimensions, but that he is as free and unconfined as thought itself. Indeed man is a thing of thought, a perfect emanation of the one perfect Mind. His absolute freedom and safety are graphically suggested in Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

— Lectures On Christian Science by Peter V Ross page 65-66

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157 – WATCH lest, as you replenish the fire of spiritual confidence and expectancy, which gives your declarations of Truth their efficacy and power, you believe the arguments heal. They do open the way for Truth to heal, and in that sense they are like the wood that keeps a fire burning. But it is the fire that throws forth the heat, and not the wood that one gathers to feed it. Once Mrs. Eddy wrote to a member of the Board of Directors, “Persevere, and if the fire burns low or appears to be getting extinguished, replenish it with faith and love. Never lose its light on the altar of Christian Science, and never cease to watch, work, pray.

— Watching Point 476 from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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Mrs. Eddy said, “When I see a student grateful I know he is safe.”

— from In Defense of Mary Baker Eddy and the Remnant of Her Seed by Paul Smillie

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Article “The New Birth” Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy

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Article mentioned during Bible Study.

— Nicodemus: Coward or Convert? by Sidney R. Sandstrom

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The Gospel of Nicodemus (also referred to as The Acts of Pilate) is a purported gospel from the days of the early church. Though the book is named after Nicodemus, the Pharisee who appears in the Gospel of John, it was not written by Nicodemus. The book is actually a conglomeration of several texts, probably collected slowly over time. Scholars date the completed Gospel of Nicodemus to sometime in the mid-fourth century.

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One of them – That is, one of the great council or Sanhedrin. God often places one or more pious men in legislative assemblies to vindicate his honor and his law; and he often gives a man grace on such occasions boldly to defend his cause; to put men upon their proof, and to confound the proud and the domineering. We see in this case, also, that a man, at one time timid and fearful (compare John 3:1), may on other occasions be bold, and fearlessly defend the truth as it is in Jesus. This example should lead every man entrusted with authority or office fearlessly to defend the truth of God, and, when the rich and the mighty are pouring contempt on Jesus and his cause, to stand forth as its fearless defender.

— Barnes’ Notes on the Bible – Nicodemus – See John 3:1.

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