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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob Dylan - Knockin' On Heaven's Door.

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

‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’ is a free resource produced by St Martin-in-the-Fields in partnership with the National Gallery. The course uses fine art paintings in the National Gallery’s collection, along with a Biblical text and a short theological reflection.

St Martin's will shortly publish two Advent Courses in the ‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Study’ series. One will explore the Four Last Things – death, judgement, heaven and hell, while the other focuses on Advent Characters – Elizabeth and Mary, Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Herod. Like earlier Inspired to Follow sessions, these use fine art paintings from the National Gallery, along with Biblical story, theological reflection and conversation with others, as a way to explore big questions that we all wrestle with. ‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’ has been produced by St Martin-in-the-Fields in partnership with the National Gallery. To find out more see www.inspiredtofollow.com.

The first of these ‘Inspired to Follow’ Advent Courses - the Four Last Things: death, judgement, heaven and hell - will also be used at St Martin's, 12.00-1.00pm on Sundays, Austen Williams Room, 4 & 18 November, 2 & 16 December.

As part of our Advent preparations, 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

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bruce Cockburn - Closer To The Light.