Boldness and Authority

In Acts 4, verse 31, it says, “and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” The word “boldness” caught my attention, so I looked it up in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, the edition used by Mary Baker Eddy. Part of the definition is “courage, bravery, spirit, fearlessness; the quality of exceeding the ordinary rules of scrupulous nicety and caution; freedom from timidity; confident trust, fearlessness.”

The Bible mentions that Christ Jesus spoke and taught “as one having authority.” (Matthew 7:29) Certainly this was even more than boldness, at least as I had previously thought of it, because the rest of that verse is “and not as the scribes.” If the scribes, having human authority, couldn’t speak or teach with the bold authority of Jesus, then where is the difference?

In my youth, a lot of Christian pastors and evangelists my mother listened to spoke loudly, but left no real mark on me. Today it feels like the internet allows people to state their opinions in a bold way, but a closer look reveals the words are without any bedrock of Truth, and the result can be sleepy numbness from the noise.

When I hear my practitioner or others in Plainfield Church speak with that real boldness and authority, it has a much different effect. First, I can tell they have been living Christian Science and have proved the point in question; and second, it instills a feeling that with effort and study and prayer on my part, I can get there as well. Instead of feeling numb afterward, I am awake and alert, and energized to get back to work. Such a profound difference between the real and the counterfeit!

As I have been learning here, “In Science we can use only what we understand. We must prove our faith by demonstration.” (S&H, p. 329) To really prove these things for myself has allowed me to have that “confident trust” and “freedom from timidity” Webster mentions, at least in accord with those demonstrations. There seems to be this moving mark, where on the near side I can speak with authority on the healing and saving power of Science because I have worked those portions out, and on the far side of that mark is where I have not proved, and on which it would be unwise for me to speak.

I am grateful to this church and practitioner support for helping me to continue moving that mark, to continue “in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free”! (Galatians 5:1)