Sermon on the Mount Materials Posted

The Calvin Institute for Christian Worship has just made available a resource guide for churches and others that want to conduct Bible studies and other gatherings using the Sermon on the Mount as the theme.

Taken together, the Sermon on the Mount Resource Guide constitutes a valuable and comprehensive collection of small-group materials, songs based on the Beatitudes that Christ names in his sermon, worship service and sermon ideas, books, and commentary on the Sermon on the Mount as recounted in Matthew’s Gospel.

The worship institute put together the resource guide as part of the initiative by Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., to hold a Bible study using the Sermon on the Mount as its focus. The Bible study runs during the fall semester.

In addition, the sermon will be the theme of the annual Calvin Symposium on Worship, set for late January of 2013 and sponsored by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary.

Calvin College and the worship institute, in emphasizing the Sermon on the Mount, are highlighting one of the most quoted and revered passages of Scripture.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus climbs up the side of a mountain and sits down.

Soon, a large crowd gathers and, according to the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, he begins to teach, citing the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” says Christ.

The crowd listening to Jesus preach and teach in the Sermon on the Mount were his disciples. They were everyday people who wanted to hear and were receptive to the teachings of Christ, said Rev. Mary Hulst, Calvin College chaplain.

Hulst sketched some background, as well as why the Sermon on the Mount is so important, in a sermon at the service that opened Calvin’s semester-long Bible study.

“The ones who gathered around Jesus on this hilltop were those who knew they were not good enough ... They held few illusions that they were better than anybody else. They had nothing to offer. No credentials to display,” said Hulst.

“So when Jesus shows up and calls them and heals them, it wasn’t because of a resume. It wasn’t because of ability or beauty or intelligence. It was because of Jesus,” she said.