Sermon on the Mount

By John Stott

What does it mean to "seek first the kingdom of God" in our relationships, values, ambitions, finances and commitments? Jesus' answer to these questions amazed those who first heard the Sermon on the Mount. In this study guide, you'll dig deep into his startling and challenging message—the greatest sermon ever preached. This twelve-session LifeGuide® Bible Study features questions for starting group discussions and for meeting God in personal reflection. Leader's notes are included with information on study preparation, leading the study and small group components as well as helps for specific Bible passages covered in the study. Presented in a convenient workbook format and featuring the inductive Bible study approach, LifeGuides are thoroughly field-tested prior to publication; they're proven and popular guides for digging into Scripture on your own or with a small group. PDF download with a single-user license; available from InterVarsity Press and other resellers. For over three decades LifeGuide Bible Studies have provided solid biblical content and raised thought-provoking questions—making for a one-of-a-kind Bible study experience for individuals and groups. This series has more than 130 titles on Old and New Testament books, character studies, and topical studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IVP Bible Studies
• Release date: Oct 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9780830862986

John Stott

The Revd Dr John Stott, CBE, was for many years Rector of All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, and chaplain to the Queen. Stott's global influence is well established, mainly through his work with Billy Graham and the Lausanne conferences - he was one of the principal authors of the Lausanne Covenant in 1974. In 2005, Time magazine ranked Stott among the 100 most influential people in the world. He passed away on July 27, 2011.

Book preview

UNEXPECTED

BLESSINGS

Matthew 5:1-12

Ahymn by William Cowper reminds us to look for blessings in unexpected places.

You fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds you so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Group Discussion. How would you define the word blessed? Ask each member of the group to write their definition on a piece of paper. Collect and read each definition, letting the group guess who wrote each one. What do the responses reveal about their authors?

Personal Reflection. Who do you normally consider to be blessed or fortunate?

In the Beatitudes we find a simplicity of word and profundity of thought that has attracted each fresh generation of Christians and many others besides. The more we explore their implications, the more seems to remain unexplored. Their wealth is inexhaustible. Truly, we are near heaven here. Read Matthew 5:1-12.

1. How does our normal description of the blessed or fortunate person compare with those Jesus considers blessed (vv. 1-12)?

2. To be poor in spirit (v. 3) is to acknowledge our spiritual poverty, our bankruptcy before God. Why is this an indispensable condition for receiving the kingdom of heaven?

Why is it so difficult for us to admit our spiritual poverty?

3. Why would those who are poor in spirit feel a need to mourn (v. 4)?

4. Those who mourn feel sorrow not only for their own sin but also for the sin they see around them. What have you heard in the news lately that causes you to mourn?

5. How do you think those who mourn will be comforted (v. 4)?

6. How would a true estimate of ourselves (vv. 3-4) lead us to be meek—to have a humble and gentle attitude to others (v. 5)?

7. From the world’s point of view, why is it surprising that the meek will inherit the

Reviews for Sermon on the Mount

[stephenbarkley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In 1978 John Stott published a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount entitled Christian Counter-Culture. It's a testimony to the insight of Stott's exegesis and, more importantly, to the power of Matthew 5-7 that thirty-seven years later, this is still a counter-cultural document.Stott had a gift for making complicated things simple. Here he takes not only the Sermon itself, but also a multitude of various interpretative traditions and distills them into neatly numbered lists.There are elements of his interpretation that I would disagree with. For example, on Matthew 6:5-6 Jesus exhorts his followers to pray in private, not like the hypocrites who love to be seen in public. Stott notes that there was nothing inherently wrong with praying on street corners and synagogues "if their motive was to break down segregated religion and bring their recognition of God out of the holy places into the secular life of every day" (133). In the first place, isn't the Synagogue a holy place? More importantly, this statement presumes (anachronistically) that first century Jewish people divided their life into religious and secular spheres—a trademark problem of the Enlightenment.Yet for every passage that makes me shake my head, there are twenty more that reveal the sort of understanding only a committed follower of Jesus can demonstrate.In the introduction, Stott wrote:"Of course commentaries by the hundred have been written on the Sermon on the Mount. I have been able to study about twenty-five of them, and my debt to the commentators will be apparent to the reader. Indeed my text is sprinkled with quotations from them, for I think we should value tradition more highly than we often do, and sit more humbly at the feet of the masters" (9).John R. W. Stott is now one of the masters he wrote about in 1978. I always benefit from sitting humbly at his feet.