Teaching the Sermon on the Mount in Primary SRE

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) is the most famous extended teaching Jesus ever gave. It contains the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, the Golden Rule, teaching on anger, lust, forgiveness, worry, and much more. For SRE teachers, it represents some of the richest material in the New Testament — but it also presents a challenge: it is dense, demanding, and easy to flatten into a morality lecture if not taught carefully.

BibleProject has produced a free 10-episode video series on the Sermon on the Mount and a further 14-episode visual commentary series — both freely available at bibleproject.com. These are outstanding preparation resources for SRE teachers before teaching any portion of Matthew 5–7.

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12) describe the people Jesus considers blessed — the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness. For younger primary students, the key move is defamiliarisation: these are not the people the world considers successful or admirable. Jesus is announcing a different kind of kingdom with a different set of values.

A simple activity: make two lists with students. 'What does the world say makes you important or happy?' (fame, money, beauty, winning). Then: 'What does Jesus say?' The contrast makes the Beatitudes land with genuine surprise.

The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13) sits within a broader section on how to pray, give, and fast — all practices that Jesus says should be done 'not to be seen by others' but before God alone. The context matters: the Lord's Prayer is not just a formula but a model of the inward, honest, private prayer that characterises the kingdom life Jesus is describing in the whole sermon. Teaching the prayer alongside its context gives it more weight and more pastoral application.

The 'birds of the air' and 'lilies of the field' passage is one of the most immediately accessible sections of the Sermon on the Mount for primary students, because worry is something every child knows. Jesus' argument is simple: if God provides for sparrows and wildflowers, how much more will he provide for people made in his image? The application is not 'stop worrying by willpower' — it is 'trust your Father, who sees you and knows what you need.'

A discussion prompt that works for Years 3–6: 'What are you most worried about right now? What would it feel like to trust God with that?'