Sermon on the Mount

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Simple and straightforward, yet endlessly captivating, the Sermon on the Mount is a startling invitation to inhabit an alternative world-where the new creation has come in Jesus himself.

Rather than laying down laws and calling us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, the Sermon offers "verbal icons through which we may see into God's will and be empowered for the moral life," writes Charles Talbert. Its call for radical obedience is not "for conformity to legitimate external rules, but for the total transformation of a person," Bonnie Thurston agrees. "To be obedient to Jesus is to become as he is, humble and gentle."

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove calls the Sermon's opening poem, the Beatitudes, the key to living faithfully in a broken world. Shane Claiborne asks how we should make discerning judgments without being judgmental. "Folks are hungry for a Christianity that mirrors Jesus," he notes, "not the judgmentalism that has done more to repel than to woo people towards God's grace."

Christian Reflection is an ideal resource for discipleship training in the church. Multiple copies are available for group study at $3.00 per copy.

The study guides and lesson plans integrate Bible study, prayer, and worship to help us central threads in the Sermon on the Mount's rich tapestry of Jesus' teaching. The guides can be used in a series or individually. You may download and reproduce them for personal or group use.