Responsive Reading: Psalm 148 : 1-6

1.     Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights.

2.     Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.

3.     Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.

4.     Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.

5.     Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created.

6.     He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass.

1. Psalm 89 : 8, 9, 11, 12 (to :), 52

8     O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee?

9     Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.

11     The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.

12     The north and the south thou hast created them:

52     Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen, and Amen.

2. Genesis 1 : 1-31 (to 1st .)

1     In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2     And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3     And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4     And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5     And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6     And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7     And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8     And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9     And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10     And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11     And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12     And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13     And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14     And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15     And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16     And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17     And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18     And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19     And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20     And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21     And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22     And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23     And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24     And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25     And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26     And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27     So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28     And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29     And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30     And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31     And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

3. Amos 4 : 13

13     For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The God of hosts, is his name.

4. Revelation 4 : 11

11     Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

1. 583 : 20-25

Creator. Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal; the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself.

2. 295 : 5-8

God creates and governs the universe, including man. The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind that makes them.

3. 479 : 18-26

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." (Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness.

4. 140 : 23-32

The Jewish tribal Jehovah was a man-projected God, liable to wrath, repentance, and human changeableness. The Christian Science God is universal, eternal, divine Love, which changeth not and causeth no evil, disease, nor death. It is indeed mournfully true that the older Scripture is reversed. In the beginning God created man in His, God's, image; but mortals would procreate man, and make God in their own human image. What is the god of a mortal, but a mortal magnified?

5. 512 : 4-16

Genesis i. 21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, and also by holy thoughts, winged with Love. These angels of His presence, which have the holiest charge, abound in the spiritual atmosphere of Mind, and consequently reproduce their own characteristics. Their individual forms we know not, but we do know that their natures are allied to God's nature; and spiritual blessings, thus typified, are the externalized, yet subjective, states of faith and spiritual understanding.

6. 516 : 24-14

Genesis i. 27. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.

To emphasize this momentous thought, it is repeated that God made man in His own image, to reflect the divine Spirit. It follows that man is a generic term. Masculine, feminine, and neuter genders are human concepts. In one of the ancient languages the word for man is used also as the synonym of mind. This definition has been weakened by anthropomorphism, or a humanization of Deity. The word anthropomorphic, in such a phrase as "an anthropomorphic God," is derived from two Greek words, signifying man and form, and may be defined as a mortally mental attempt to reduce Deity to corporeality. The life-giving quality of Mind is Spirit, not matter. The ideal man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.

7. 294 : 19-27 (to 2nd .)

The lines of demarcation between immortal man, representing Spirit, and mortal man, representing the error that life and intelligence are in matter, show the pleasures and pains of matter to be myths, and human belief in them to be the father of mythology, in which matter is represented as divided into intelligent gods. Man's genuine selfhood is recognizable only in what is good and true. Man is neither self-made nor made by mortals. God created man.

8. 507 : 15-23

The universe of Spirit reflects the creative power of the divine Principle, or Life, which reproduces the multitudinous forms of Mind and governs the multiplication of the compound idea man. The tree and herb do not yield fruit because of any propagating power of their own, but because they reflect the Mind which includes all. A material world implies a mortal mind and man a creator. The scientific divine creation declares immortal Mind and the universe created by God.

9. 502 : 27-5

The creative Principle — Life, Truth, and Love — is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God.

10. 205 : 7-13

When will the error of believing that there is life in matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of God, be unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has neither intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific source of all suffering? God created all through Mind, and made all perfect and eternal.

11. 265 : 31-5

The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good, "rejoicing the heart." Such is the sword of Science, with which Truth decapitates error, materiality giving place to man's higher individuality and destiny.