In the Bible, evil is first symbolized by a talking serpent in the book of Genesis. By the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, the serpent has grown into a giant dragon.
It is heartening to know that there is no such thing as a talking serpent, and dragons are products of the human imagination. Have you ever seen a talking serpent or dragon in real-life? Nope. They don’t exist.
Using non-existent creatures as symbols for evil is the Bible’s way of teaching humanity the unreality of evil. As one grows in their understanding of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, evil’s seeming power fades away into its native nothingness, and healing happens.
My father-in-law was fond of telling others one of his favorite Christian Science healings that gave him further insights into the unreality of evil. A physical ailment he had been suffering from had been unyielding to prayer for several weeks. Frustrated, he told a Christian Science practitioner that there was no improvement no matter how much he prayed. The practitioner replied, “Well, John, don’t let the great dragon become a drag-on in your life.”
The mesmerism broke. He realized that he had been making a reality of the problem—a reality of the dragon, and thus the reason it had not been yielding.
He went back to the basics of Christian Science and got metaphysically clear that there is no dragon and there is no evil, that there is only the omnipresence of God’s good. The healing came rapidly.
So, no more drag-ons in your life!
“Against Love, the dragon warreth not long, for he is killed by the divine Principle. Truth and Love prevail against the dragon because the dragon cannot war with them” Science and Health, p. 567.
I love this play on words! I shall never again read the word dragon without thinking drag-on and the spiritual message behind it. Really helpful. Thanks Evan
Very helpful thought, thank you so much.
I love this statement!
“Using non-existent creatures as symbols for evil is the Bible’s way of teaching humanity the unreality of evil. ”
I really never thought of it quite like this before and the imagery of this helps me to see evil as also a “fantasy” image.
Thankyou so much Evan
Dear Evan……thank you so much.
Just so clear ….I can use this at once…..
so grateful for your blogs!
Ann
Yes, thank you Evan….this will be so useful for my
Sunday School class as well as for myself. Your
posts are always helpful…I look for them every
morning! Thank you for sharing your inspiration!!
Dear Evan – this is exactly what I needed to hear this morning, thank you so much!
Great analogy and truth. Thank Evan.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful inspiration. This Truth can set me free too!
Thank you, Evan for all your healing work.
So helpful for me, too. Thanks to Evan and all.
Yes,learning that we aren’t battling something real opposing good is so helpful. It does seem that way at times,I will admit. But shifting to seeing/really understanding that good is not just a power along side evil, but that it is the ONLY reality, has brought me healing too! Thank you, Evan. This is so good!
Christ Jesus certainly knew the value of teaching spiritual lessons through the use of parables!
Talking snakes and huge fiery dragons! How absurd!
(As are sickness, sin, and death!!)
;-)))
It’s not absurd if
you know and value
symbolism
Thank you Evan! I enjoy your play on words…lol. Very insightful Spiritview! I look forward to each creative revelation that feeds the sheep each day. 🙂
Thanks for this post. I have often wondered why problems linger on (or drag on.)
They won’t disappear until we realize their unreality.
This exactly what I needed. Thank you.
Barb
Thanks, Evan.
Great blog and comments too! Thanks ya’ll!
This is so interesting that this is the 2nd time this week the subject of dragons has come up. The other day I came across a Bible passage that I wasn’t familiar with;
“In the habitation of dragons, where they lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.’ Isa 35:7
I looked up articles in JSH and found many good explanations of the passage. The best was an article by Paul Stark Seeley entitled Dragons and Grass. This is an excerpt from it.
“Sometimes the dragon may seem to be a long-drawn-out illness, impaired senses, recurring failure and frustration, habitually clashing personal wills, or wrong habits that would periodically appear to consume one’s peace, dissipate one’s right resolve, and thwart one’s right endeavor.
A Sunday school teacher was discussing with her class the great red dragon described in the Apocalypse. Queried a small boy, “Is the dragon in Revelation the same creature as is described in the third chapter of Genesis as a serpent?” Upon being assured it was, he put the pertinent question, “Why didn’t they kill it when it was young?” Yes, why don’t we kill evil suggestions while they are young, before they grow into swollen dragons? “…and drag on and on and on!
Thank you for your addendum! Love it! LOL “why didnt they kill it when it was young?” Indeed, much easier to correct the lie, the mistake early on before it morphs into something seemingly bigger
Here is the link to the whole article.
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/1zwpexfgqxk?s=e.
Thank you for providing the link to this article Karen. 🙂
Yes, thank you Karen for giving us this link to that so understandable good article of Paul Stark Seeley.
The last paragraph is so good, specially the sentence “For every suggestion of evil there is an angel, a God-sent idea, to reverse and destroy it.”
The whole article is very inspiring and needed.
And so needed is Evan`s SpiritView today; thank you immensely for those inspiring thoughts, also teaching us about the bible allegories – I love to understand the bible more and more, too!
Excellent, love the ‘sudden dismissal’ of error when we are clear. Thank you.
Brilliant!
Every morning SV is a great guide and inspiration. This one is so clear for me, and fun too! Thank you every day!
Love this!!! Thank-you!!!
Thank you, Evan! Great blog! And thank you, Katen, for posting Mr. Seely’s article. I recently had a healing of a” dragon” belief which lasted quite a while and it dissipated one morning when I just said, “enough” and refused to react to it’s presentation of disability. The simplicity of the Truth is staggering in its powerful tenderness!
That’s great Patty! I like to think of the great red dragon as a big red balloon. The more it is blown up the “riper it is for destruction” because it is getting closer to popping. Your”enough” was the pin that popped that dragon balloon. Well done! After all it was always just full of hot air.
Thank you, Evan, for that insightful and inspiring blog. And thank you, Karen, for the link to that article. Very helpful!
Thank you dear Evan for Every Post…no human words can I find to express my Gratitude for your Sharing….especially loved this one today!! Thanks also to Patty and Karen…I am keeping my “pin” handy to Pop that dragon balloon each time it tries to inflate its LIE
Thank you to everyone❤️ Caydee
Love it!
Thaks to Evan and everyone. For my first healing in CS I didnt have to do anything but read S and H,and found freedom that lasted 10 years. I am working on it again and love all of these ideas. Thank you Evan and everyone.
Needed this. Thank you all.
You wrote: “As one grows in their understanding of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, evil’s seeming power fades away into its native nothingness, and healing happens.” To improve this sentence, you could change “their understanding” to “his or her understanding” in order to make the sentence grammatically correct. It would read as such: As one grows in his or her understanding of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, evil’s seeming power fades away into its native nothing, and healing happens.
It is critical to grasp the fact that evil is unreal in order for a metaphysical treatment to be effective. This concept that you bring up is most helpful to understanding healing in Christian Science.