John Carter – 2018

{ESV}

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

{Translation}

You are truly-happy when they mock you and they chase you and say all evil against you; lying because of me. Rejoice! Celebrate! For your reward is great the heavens. For in this way they chased the prophets before you.

You are the salt of the earth—but if the salt is foolish with what will it be salted? It has no purpose except to be thrown outside to be trampled by people.

You are the light of the world. A city is not able to be hidden by being laid out atop a  mountain. Neither does anyone light an oil-lamp and place it under a bowl. Rather, it is placed on the lampstand. And it shines for everyone in the house. So then, let your light shine before people—so that they might see your good works and might glorify your Father who is in the heavens.

{Manuscript/Outline}

Persecuted for Jesus

• A. Carson – P.167 – “’Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called on to suffer. In fact it is a joy and a token of his grace’” (Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, 80-81).

Rejoice! Celebrate!

You (all) are…

• T. France – P.171 – “The hilltop town of v. 14 is a symbol not of a conspicuous individual but of the collective impact of a whole community. Modern western individualism is such that we easily think of the light of the world as a variety of candles shining, ‘you shine in your small corner, and I in mine,’ but it is the collective light of the whole community which draws the attention of the watching world.”

Salt: Preserves

• Leon Morris – P.104 – salt “the enemy of decay.

Light: Illuminates

• Thought: Christian retreats are fine—even Jesus found time to get away and pray, but Christian communes are anti-Christ. How can we call ourselves followers of Christ – who are by default light- and try to hide ourselves in safe Christian environments where no darkness will ever touch or see us? I got mad at the darkness last week. So to prove how dark the darkness was and I hid my light.
• A. Carson – P.170 – “Flight into the invisible is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.” (Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, 106).

Foolish Salt, Foolish City

Let Your Light Shine

• T. France – P.172 – “Disciples, therefore, must be both distinctive and involved. Neither the indistinguishably assimilated nor the inaccessible hermit will fulfill the mandate of these challenging verses.”
• T. France – P.176 – “The ‘job description’ of a disciple is not fulfilled by private personal holiness, but includes the witness of public exposure.”
• Leon Morris – P.105 – “The very purpose of being a follower of Jesus is to give light.”
• T. Robinson – P.43 – “Thus men are to let their light shine, not to glorify themselves…”
• T. Robinson – P.43 – “Light shines to see others by, not to call attention to itself.”

Your Father

• Leon Morris – P.106 – “We are so accustomed to referring to God as ‘the Father’ that we do not stop to reflect that this is a revolutionary way of thinking of ‘the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy.” Jesus altered forever the way we think of God.”
• This is the offer of salvation given by Jesus.

The world despised

• Those who suffer are not to be confused with those who suffer for the sake of Christ
• Being salt and being light is not purposeless and empty attributes. They explain what we are to do. But just because God has called us to be public we would be foolish to believe that that call does not include reviling. Some love light, others hate it. Some are even sickened by it. Some love salt and are healed by it. For others, salt is a death sentence. We cannot control how people will respond to salt or light. Neither can we control how others will respond to us as we display his glory.
• It is impossible to separate being blessed of Christ from being persecuted for Christ.
• Stop believing the lie that you can be a Christian by yourself. It’s not true and it’s deadly. You not only need other believers, you are an insignificant anomaly without being joined to other believers.

{Reading Notes}

Matthew 5:11-16

EBC – D.A. Carson (2010)

• 167 – “’Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called on to suffer. In fact it is a joy and a token of his grace’” (Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, 80-81).
• 167 – “Not Jesus but the disciples are likened to the prophets. Jesus places himself on par with God.”
• Thought: Those who are salt that is tasteless are actually foolish /stupid/ useless/ a waste.
• Thought: Christian retreats are fine—even Jesus found time to get away and pray, but Christian communes are anti-Christ. How can we call ourselves followers of Christ – who are by default light- and try to hide ourselves in safe Christian environments where no darkness will ever touch or see us? I got mad at the darkness last week. So to prove how dark the darkness was I hid my light.
• 170 – “Flight into the invisible is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.” (Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship, 106).

NICNT – R.T. France (2007)

• 171 – “The hilltop town of v. 14 is a symbol not of a conspicuous individual but of the collective impact of a whole community. Modern western individualism is such that we easily think of the light of the world as a variety of candles shining, ‘you shine in your small corner, and I in mine,’ but it is the collective light of the whole community which draws the attention of the watching world.”
• Thought: Linguistically and astronomically as there is only one world so there is only one light.
• 173 – “The persecution of the prophets was an established feature of Jewish folk-memory…”
• 172 – “Disciples, therefore, must be both distinctive and involved. Neither the indistinguishably assimilated nor the inaccessible hermit will fulfill the mandate of these challenging verses.”
• 172 – ‘because of me’ “makes it clear that this discourse is not just a call to moral conduct but is grounded in the unique authority and radical demands of Jesus himself.”
• 173 – “The phrase ‘the prophets who came before you’ perhaps suggests that Jesus’ disciples are now the prophetic voice on earth.”
• Thought: Salt of the covenant – Leviticus
• 175 – “Jesus is not trying to teach chemistry, and the ludicrous imagery of trying to ‘salt’ that which should itself be the source of saltiness is a powerful indictment of disciples who have lost their distinctiveness and so no longer have anything to contribute to society.”
• Phil 2:15
• 176 – “The ‘job description’ of a disciple is not fulfilled by private personal holiness, but includes the witness of public exposure.”
• 177 – “The subject of this discourse, and the aim of the discipleship which it promotes, is not so much the betterment of life on earth as the implementation of the reign of God.”
• Matthew 6:1

PNTC – Leon Morris (1992)

• 102 – “”For my sake” links the whole saying with the Christian profession.”
• Thought: “when” not “if’ this persecution is coming. It is certain. Be prepared to suffer. Don let it surprise you.
• 103 – “It is a privilege for the servants of God in later days to share in some measure in the lot of these great men of God.”
• 104 – “Jesus has spoken of their blessedness; now he turns to their responsibility.”
• Thought: We want to be blessed, but to what end? Like a teenager who wants to drive but not run errands for mom and dad, so too are we who want the privileges of blessedness, but without the responsibility. To whom much is given, much is required.
• 104 – salt “the enemy of decay.”
• 104 – FN44 – L.G. Herr – “the salt from the dead sea region was generally contaminated with other minerals; thus the salt could be dissolved out of this mixture, leaving a tasteless substance”
• 105 – “The very purpose of being a follower of Jesus is to give light.”
• Thought: your salvation is not so much a noun as much a verb. Not a thing but an action. You are not saved to be, but saved to do!
• Thought: “good” the quality of the work, not the work itself. Clothing the poor vs. how you cloth the poor
• Thought: does the praise come to the doer of to the Father?
• 106 – “We are so accustomed to referring to God as ‘the Father’ that we do not stop to reflect that this is a revolutionary way of thinking of ‘the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy.” Jesus altered forever the way we think of God.”

Divine Conspiracy – Dallas Willard

• 125 – “The Beatitudes is not even a list of spiritual giants.”

A.T. Robertson (1930)

• Thought: light does not exist to be seen but to illuminate another. For as amazing as the sun is, we don’t look to it but to that which it illuminates.
• 43 – “Thus men are to let their light shine, not to glorify themselves…”
• 43 – “Light shines to see others by, not to call attention to itself.”

[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=ESV – Retrieved 1/13/18