New Testament 201
THE STRUCTURE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER

Prayer has been present throughout evolution. For the early Christians, it signified something more than simply a means of uniting human beings with their God. The loftier the things a person prays for, the better it is. Praying for outer things is foreign to the sense of original Christianity: "Father, not my will but your will be done."

What is the Father's will in the original Christian sense? It is the will that represents the primal law governing all of cosmic evolution. I want all my successes and wishes to be so perfect that they correspond to the sense of the Father's will - that is, to the spiritual law of the cosmos; I want them not to deviate from this great spiritual law. If I aspire to some arbitrary request when I pray, to something that springs from my everyday nature, from personal preference, I am not praying in the sense of "not my will, but your will be done." We pray we are praying for or to have our own will prevail, but when we and our will are lifted up, striving to become divine, for our soul's resurrection in the divine, in the Christ element.

In these lectures Rudolf Steiner explores the structure of the most comprehensive, universal prayer in Christian tradition. It is one of the deepest prayers found anywhere in the world. Today we can no longer measure the entire depth of the Lord's Prayer as taught in the original language. It is thought content is so powerful, however, that it cannot in any way be reduced by any language. The more that the meaning of this prayer is made conscious, the more helpful and powerful it becomes.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 202
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

In the lectures on the Sermon on the Mount Rudolf Steiner explains how considering the whole of human evolution is a way to comprehend better Christ's great instructions. This was by no means a sermon for the masses. The Gospels read, "When Christ saw the multitudes of people, He withdrew from them and revealed Himself to His disciples." To them He disclosed that man, in ancient times, could become God-imbued during states of ecstasy. But now - so said Christ Jesus to His disciples - a man can become God-imbued who becomes permeated within himself with the God and Christ impulse, and can unite himself as an ego with this impulse.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 203
THE INCREDIBLE BIRTHS OF JESUS

To read the biblical accounts of the birth of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke is to enter the realm of mystery. A human being was born, into whom a spiritual being of the highest order, the Son of God, would later descend and indwell for three and a half years. How are we to go about understanding this event, so beyond our normal understanding? What human vehicle could be adequate to undertake the indwelling of the Son of God? What sort of human being was the babe born in Bethlehem?

The place to begin is with the Gospels themselves. In these lecture/guides Edward R. Smith brings to the student a lifetime of studying and teaching the Bible in a restless search for its deeper meaning. Here we can find the insights of spiritual science brought to the heart of mainstream Christianity allowing us to wake up to the truth of the Gospels.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 204
STUDIES IN MATTHEW

The four Gospels present different aspects of the greatest event in the history of the Earth and of Humankind. Each Gospel has its importance in its own right. In these lectures, Rudolf Steiner presents the characteristic features of St. Matthew's Gospel. Here we find a depiction of Christ Jesus as Man during His sojourn on Earth. All the qualities of the blood of Abraham, the progenitor of the Hebrew people, were concentrated in the physical constitution of Jesus of Nazareth. The mission and function of the Hebrews in the evolution of humanity is discussed in a much more comprehensive time frame than in conventional studies. Here we are introduced to the enormous divine plan of the evolution of humanity with the turning point being the incarnation of Christ into the Hebrew people as Jesus of Nazareth.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 205
STUDIES IN MARK

The Gospel of St. Mark begins with the words, 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ'. For those who in our day seek to understand this Gospel, these first words actually contain three riddles. The first is that lying in the words - 'The beginning...' The beginning of what? How is this beginning to be understood? The second is - "The beginning of the Gospel...' What in a spiritual scientific sense is the meaning of the word 'Gospel'? The third is that of which is the greatest mystery: the figure of Christ Jesus Himself. These lectures by Rudolf Steiner will bring many revelations to any student interested in penetrating the mysteries of Christianity.

Among many other aids to the investigation of Christian truths one is particularly effective. It consists in extending our vision and our feeling and perception beyond the horizons within which, in recent centuries, humankind has had to seek an understanding of the spiritual world. Through this ability in these lectures Steiner is able to uncover the symbolic language of the Macrocosm and uncover the mystery teachings found in Gospel of Mark.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 206
STUDIES IN LUKE

These lectures require that the student confront the dramatic revelations and insights provided by Rudolf Steiner with the Gospel written by Luke in Greek, perhaps in Rome (where Luke and Paul worked together), probably between 80 and 90 A.D. Some students will be unprepared for Steiner's account of the differences between the Gospel of Luke (which contains, for example, a visit to the Nativity by shepherds) and the Gospel of Matthew (which speaks of a visit to the Nativity by Magi). Probably all students not familiar with Steiner will be unprepared for several additional claims introduced in these lectures, including the role of world-historical spiritual figures such as Hermes, Moses, Elijah, Zoroaster, and Buddha. These lectures also provide an amazing (not to say incredible) account of the individuals whose entwined destinies are described in Luke and Matthew, such as Jesus, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, and John the Evangelist.

Steiner's lectures on Luke are not intended to replace an experience of the original Gospel. Rather these lectures, like all of his more than one hundred lectures on the Gospels, offer an uncut version of the life and teachings of Jesus as experienced by the clairvoyant Luke.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 207
STUDIES IN JOHN

Steiner characterizes an initiate as one who is able to transcend the outer physical world and experience the spiritual worlds directly, as ordinary people experience the physical world through their senses. Second, the initiate is able to transcend the feelings and sensations which belong to the physical world but which have no place in the spiritual worlds. In sum the initiate of all ages is characterized by direct knowledge of the spiritual world and absolute objectivity. Both of these characteristics are evident in the experience and teachings of the great yogis, exemplars of what Steiner refers to as the first of three main types of initiation. These characteristics are also evident in the Gospel of St. John, written by the one whom the Christ Himself initiated as the archetypal representative of the Christian esoteric tradition. Spiritual knowledge and objectivity are also characteristic of the spiritual experience and teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the foremost exponent-exemplar of the modern, Rosicrucian type of Christian initiation. To understand the combination of Christian and modern in Steiner's teaching concerning initiation, it is important to build on an understanding of Christian initiation as revealed by the Christ to the author of the Gospel of St. John.

For any sincere open-minded student these lectures by Steiner will prove to be an initiation into the deepest mysteries of Christianity.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 208
STUDIES CONCERNING PAUL

Describing the environment into which Saul was born, his education, his conversion before Damascus, and his subsequent journeys, Bock's lecture/guides give a spiritual dimension to Paul/s background, providing a deeper understanding of this great Christian figure and his teaching. Above all, Bock shows that Paul was the apostle who carried Christianity beyond the Jewish communities to humanity at large.

The decisive experience which Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of Christ, had before entering Damascus is not so much a conversion, but an enlightenment, a transformation extending and heightening Paul's consciousness. As a zealous Jew, Paul was convinced he was serving the coming Messiah in his persecution of the followers of Jesus. When the light suddenly came to him before Damascus his inmost being was opened. Paul himself characterized his Damascus experience as a revelation of conscience in that he describes the event as a great awareness within himself, not as the encounter with a spirit coming from without: "When it pleased God to reveal his son within me."

Here Paul shows that the time of the Law of Moses had run its course and conscience as "inner jurisdiction" was now to replace the rules and laws imposed from without.

Students of these lectures will gain immense insights into both St. Paul and the possibility of having a similar experience of the Christ.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 209
STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS

What were the sources of the Revelation of St. John and what does this final book of the New Testament mean? The sources of this writing and its profound meaning for us today can be found in the text itself. The writer of the apocalypse "saw and heard" that which it contains "in the spirit". St. John is never weary of pointing out in the most unequivocal way imaginable that the content of the Apocalypse has nothing to do with the special and temporal conditions, hearsay or tradition, but that it has come into existence simply and solely through revelation from the spiritual world. Thus, for example, the text of the Apocalypse begins with a definite statement concerning its source, its authorship, and the way it has originated: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to show unto His servants...and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John." (Rev. I;1) In these words is characterized in distinct and solemn manner the path by which the apocalypse came into being. It is the path of the descent from God to Jesus Christ, from Jesus Christ to the Angel of Revelation, from the Angel to John, and from John to the readers, hearers, and keepers of "the words of this prophecy".

In these lectures Valentin Tomberg reveals the spiritual history of humankind through the understanding of these words of prophecy. As Christ is the source of the Revelation of St. John, He is also the source of those positive soul currents which flow in Humankind form the past to the future. In this deep way through these lectures we can come to understand better the past, the present and the future, a most important task for us living today.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.

New Testament 210
THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED

These lecture/guides by Edward R. Smith focus on the identity of the "beloved disciple": the one "learning on Jesus' bosom, whom Jesus loved" - the one to whom Jesus "gave" His mother - not to mention the one who wrote the fourth Gospel, the Apocalypse, and certain letters that expound the Christian teaching of love more perfectly than any other human text. Ordinary Christians have always called this author "John," which tradition has sometimes interpreted to mean "to whom is given" and which Smith tells us comes from a conflation of two Hebrew words "Yah" (or Yahweh) and with "Anna," meaning "grace." In other words, John manifests and bears witness to God's grace. Certainly no Christian texts have exerted a comparable initiatory influence. Indeed, whether or not it is justifiable to speak of a "Joannine" spiritual (esoteric) Church, in contrast to the Petrine or institutional (exoteric) Church, St. John has always stood for the heights of mystical theology: the deepest Christian initiation. His identity, therefore, is a matter of more than passing interest.

For all who are willing to consider the matter openly, these lectures will bring amazing insights into such mysteries as to the relationship of Lazarus to John and who was the mother of Jesus. These lectures cannot but help to gain a greatly increased love and understanding of John's great contribution to Christianity.

For each course an experienced mentor is provided through email. Following each lecture/guide are questions for you to begin a discourse with your mentor.