Inspired to Follow: Art & the Bible Story - Advent Courses

‘Inspired to Follow: Art & the Bible Story’ is a free resource prepared by St Martin-in-the-Fields to help people explore the Christian faith, using paintings and Biblical story as the starting points. It’s been designed as a 22-week course over three terms (although the materials can be used for shorter courses too), and uses fine art paintings in the National Gallery’s collection, along with a theological reflection and a Biblical text, as a spring board for exploring these two questions: How can I deepen my faith in God? What does it mean to follow Jesus today? For more information, see
https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/life-st-martins/discipleship/inspired-to-follow/inspired-follow-course-materials/

This Autumn, we have added to the existing materials two Advent Courses of four sessions each. The first addresses the Last Things, the traditional Advent themes of Death, Judgement, Heaven & Hell, while the second covers the following Advent Characters: Elizabeth & Mary; Joseph; Zechariah & Elizabeth; and Herod.

As always with ‘Inspired to Follow: Art & the Bible Story’, these courses use fine art paintings in the National Gallery’s collection. The Last Things course includes: ‘The Lamentation over the Dead Christ’ – Rembrandt; ‘Saint Michael’ - Carlo Crivelli; ‘Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven; central predella panel’ - probably by Fra Angelico; and ‘The Rich Man being led to Hell’ - David Teniers the Younger. The Advent Characters course includes: ‘The Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth’ - Workshop of Goossen van der Weyden; ‘The Dream of Saint Joseph’ - Philippe de Champaigne; ‘The Naming of Saint John the Baptist’ - Barent Fabritius; and ‘The Massacre of the Innocents with Herod’ - Gerolamo Mocetto. The materials are available to be downloaded via the link above, as with the existing materials.

We hope you will find these additions to ‘Inspired to Follow: Art & the Bible Story’ a helpful addition to the site and a useful resource in your churches or parishes.

At St Martin-in-the-Fields we began using ‘Inspired to Follow Advent Course - the Four Last Things: death, judgement, heaven and hell'. This new programme of hour-long gatherings over four Sundays explores the Four Last Things using the following passages and paintings:

• 4 November Death - Mark 15:33-45 / ‘The Lamentation over the Dead Christ’ Rembrandt
• 18 November Judgement - Revelation 12:7-17 / ‘Saint Michael’ Carlo Crivelli
• 2 December Heaven - Revelation 21:1-5, 9-11, 22-27, 22:1-5 / ‘Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven; central predella panel’ probably by Fra Angelico
• 16 December Hell - Luke 16:19-30 / ‘The Rich Man being led to Hell’ David Teniers the Younger 

All these sessions are at 12.00-1.00pm on Sundays, Austen Williams Room, 4 & 18 November, 2 & 16 December.

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Bob Dylan - Knockin' On Heaven's Door.