Bible Study for Saturday, October 3rd, 2026
The Sermon on the Mount
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Unreality
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Bible Study Questions and Readings
Faith grasps the blessing she desires,
Hope points the upward gaze;
And Love, celestial Love, inspires
The eloquence of praise.
But sweeter far the still small voice
Unheard by human ear,
When God has made the heart rejoice,
And dried the bitter tear.
No accents flow, no words ascend;
All utterance faileth there;
But God Himself doth comprehend
And answer silent prayer.
Hymn 54, words written by Harriet Martineau
Topic: Sermon On The Mount
Moderator: Thomas from NY
Text: Matthew, chapters 5 through 7
Questions:
- What do we know about Harriet Martineau?
- What is a “Beatitude?” What does the word “Blessed” mean?
- What were Jesus’ instructions on how to pray? (Matthew 6:5-15); how is Hymn 54 helpful with this question?
- What were Jesus' instructions on worrying? (Matthew 6:25-34); How is Hymn 54 helpful with this question?
Notes:
The Prophecy And Vision by Judge Septimus J. Hanna
The textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health, is but a systematized amplification of the Mosaic Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. The teachings of these constitute the groundwork of Christianity. Were they fully understood and practiced, the Kingdom of Christ would have fully come. To the extent that they are being understood and practiced, the Kingdom is coming into human consciousness, and the receiving of the Christ-Spirit into human consciousness is the true coming of His Kingdom. Let it always be borne in mind by believers in the Bible that Jesus declared the evidence of the presence of the Kingdom to be the healing of the sick, the casting out of devils, the cleansing of lepers, and the raising of the dead. Certainly these must be the evidences, for, carried to their ultimate effect, they comprehend the complete redemption of the human race.
Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 303
If ever I wear out from serving students, it shall be in the effort to help them to obey the Ten Commandments and imbibe the spirit of Christ’s Beatitudes.
Message for 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy, page 11
To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice.
My religion by Leo Tolstoy, page 5 (link)
Of all the other portions of the Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount always had for me an exceptional importance. I now read it more frequently than ever. Nowhere does Jesus speak with greater solemnity, nowhere does he propound moral rules more definitely and practically, nor do these rules in any other form awaken more readily an echo in the human heart; nowhere else does he address himself to a larger multitude of the common people. If there are any clear and precise Christian principles, one ought to find them here. I therefore sought the solution of my doubts in Matthew v., vi., and vii., comprising the Sermon on the Mount. These chapters I read very often, each time with the same emotional ardor, as I came to the verses which exhort the hearer to turn the other cheek, to give up his cloak, to be at peace with all the world, to love his enemies, — but each time with the same disappointment. The divine words were not clear. They exhorted to a renunciation so absolute as to entirely stifle life as I understood it ; to renounce everything, ‘ therefore, could not, it seemed to me, be essential to salvation. And the moment this ceased to be an absolute condition, clearness and precision were at an end.
Notes from the Discussion
Isaiah 55:8
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
To strike out right and left against the mist, never clears the vision; but to lift your head above it, is a sovereign panacea. Mental darkness is senseless error, neither intelligence nor power, and its victim is responsible for its supposititious presence.
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 355
John 5:30
I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
The People’s Idea of God: Its Effect on Health and Christianity by Mary Baker Eddy
Scholastic theology makes God manlike; Christian Science makes man Godlike.
Message for 1901 by Mary Baker Eddy
Beatitude
1. Blessedness; felicity of the highest kind; consummate bliss; used of the joys of heaven.
2. The declaration of blessedness made by our Savior to particular virtues.
Matthew 5 in The Amplified Bible
The Beatitudes by Irma Stewart
The Be-attitudes as opposed to the me-attitudes
Desire is prayer
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 1
Matthew 6:33
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
There is no acceptable prayer until we can say with the prodigal—"I will arise and go unto my Father."
All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer, — the Lord's Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly on earth, — "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Pulpit and Press by Mary Baker Eddy, page 22
Regenerate
2. In theology, to renew the heart by a change of affections; to change the heart and affections from natural enmity to the love of God; to implant holy affections in the heart.
Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 174
Leave off, then, this damaging habit of worry and take to this enriching habit of prayer! See how you will thus make a double gain—first, by avoiding a loss, and secondly, by getting that which will really benefit you and others, too!