A Strange Job Description: Salt & Light Series

A Strange Job Description: Salt and Light

(Matt. 5:13-16)

Jesus knows that we cannot keep detailed outlines in our heads, so He provides us with a few simple pictures to summarize our calling in the trenches and routines of life.

Main Idea: The Christian responsibility to lost society, the world around us, is described in two figures. They are both simple in nature but deep in implication.

I. The First Figure is ____SALT____________

1. Roman understanding: soldiers often paid with salt (valuable); expression, “worth his salt” finds it origin here

2. Multi-cultural ancient understanding

3. Biblical background…all the teachings of Christ are set against the Old Testament backdrop; He spoke to His fellow Jews who were all WELL VERSED in the Old Testament, so it is always important to build upon that foundation; the Old Testament colors all the teachings of Christ because of what the original audience (and Jesus Himself) assumed…this is why people taking stabs at the teachings of Christ often say the stupidest things…they are not serious about understanding the ORIGINAL intent, and without contemplating the shared religious beliefs and assumptions of the time, we get all sorts of ludicrous interpretations….

(1) Lot’s wife, __cleansing___of Sodom/Gommorrah: purifying nature of salt

(2) Lev. 12:13 reads, "Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings."

(3) 2 Chron. 13:5 reads, "Don’t you know that the LORD, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?"

4. Three MAIN meanings of being the "salt" of the earth

(1)_____preservative______(main meaning)

(2)___provokes_____a thirst

(3) adds ___taste________(seasoning) Colossians 4:6 reads, "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

II. The Second Figure is ___Light________

1. OT background, Psalm 36:9, "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light"

2. Three MAIN meanings of "light"

(1) illumination: spreading the ___Word______

(2) cleansing: letting the Word work __within____ I John 1:5-7, "This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.If we claim to have fellow-ship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."

(3) holiness of life: living the ___Word______