Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Make Me Salt, Make Me Light | The Gospels | Matthew 5:13–16

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Why does Jesus call his followers salt and light? Why does he want us to live differently from the world? And what’s the point of being different in the first place? In Matthew 5, Jesus gives us the why behind the distinct life he calls his followers to live. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Matthew 5:13–16

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. The other day, I was driving home from my parents' house, and my husband was waiting for us to get there to get the kids cleaned, in PJs, and off to bed, as he does most every night. And as we pulled up to our street, I reminded the big kids, okay, guys, when we get home, we're going to be good listeners for dad. We're not going to throw tantrums about bedtime or more books or more time in the tub. We're going to respect and obey dad for bedtime. Yes? Now, the correct response to this kind of a command in our household is, yes, Mama.

And that happens on its own about 10% of the time, maybe. With a little back and forth, I'd say we usually get there. But this evening, it was not the 10%. one of my kids' immediate responses was why. And despite the frustration of the moment and the bold rejection of everything that I had just said, I couldn't help but see myself in his question. Why? Why should I listen? Why should I do what you're telling me to do? What's the point? I think it's a question that maybe a lot of us have for God. We hold a belief that the Bible is a big book of moral rules, telling us how to live our lives and we better obey and get enough of them right

to appease God. Don't want to make them upset. Don't want to miss out on heaven. Or maybe we just think the Bible's like a big book of rules telling us how to get blessing. Better follow the rules so I can have the best life possible so things go right for me so I don't get myself into trouble. But in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus has begun arguably his most famous sermon, the sermon on the Mount. And Jesus is beginning his ministry. He's been baptized. He's gone to the wilderness to be tempted. He's gathered disciples to himself. And now we see him ascend a mountain to teach his disciples. And if you remember last week on Wednesday, we talked about the comparison between Jesus and Moses. Here, many make the connection that just like Moses went up to a mountain to get the law from God, here we see Jesus go up to a mountain to deliver a a sermon, a teaching, that in many ways mirrors the law that God gave his people. Now, the laws that God gave to the Israelites were for their protection, for their good, and for their distinction. They were to be set apart, to look different than the nations,

to follow Yahweh alone. These laws, they told the people of God how they were to live as a part of God's holy nation, Israel. And here, in this sermon, Jesus is coming in, and proclaiming what it looks like to be God's holy people, to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. And right out of the gate, as you heard yesterday, he gives a list of characteristics that are to be true of those who are disciples, his followers, citizens of God's kingdom. And as you read them, I'm sure you notice that maybe they felt backwards, upside down,

blessed to the poor, the meek, those who mourn. See, Jesus is displaying a core truth about being one of his followers. Your life will look different than the world. And it isn't that this is a new law. We'll get into that more with tomorrow's passage. But it's that Jesus is showing us the kind of person you become and the life you live if you live in step with God's commands. This sermon is a deeper examination of the heart of God's law.

And it's important to recognize that Jesus is specifically using language that is directed at his disciples. These commands are for people who are following Jesus, who have faith in him. This is what it looks like to live in the kingdom of God as a citizen of heaven. But that gets us back to our original question. Why? Why live in this way? Because our good works, they don't. save us. Look at Ephesians 2,8, 9. No, it's Jesus' righteousness that saves us. His gift, his sacrifice, his blood. Faith alone in the person and work of Jesus is what covers us. So why? Why give a whole sermon on what our lives should look like if I'm already good? Jesus will forgive me. He's already lived the perfect life. Why do we need another sermon on the

mountain? Now directly following the beatitudes and before Jesus dives into the rest of of his sermon, Jesus tells us the why. And he uses two illustrations to help us understand his point, those of salt and light. Now we'll read the passage in just a moment, but as I read it, I want you to listen for the effects of salt and light in this passage. What do they do to the things around them? Verse 13 through 15, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose, loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. Now remember, when Jesus says you, he isn't talking to the general public. This isn't good advice for how everyone can live their life. This is biblical, spiritual truth, and reality about those who are disciples of Jesus, children of God, citizens of his kingdom. You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Now, salt as a stable compound can't actually lose its saltiness. But it can be contaminated and drowned out by other things so that you can no longer experience

or taste its saltiness. Like, when you make chocolate chip cookies and you put a little salt in there, the cookie doesn't really taste salty. It tastes like a cookie. Because the salt is surrounded and diluted by other flavors. It's overpowered. But if you make a good chocolate chip cookie and you sprinkle like the big Blakey salt on top at the end, you taste that salt.

And it is good. You are salt. You, as children of God, have been given a distinct calling and identity. You have a purpose. That when lived out distinctly in the world, man, it adds something good. It enhances, it affects, it brings out the goodness and richness of whatever it comes into contact with. But if you dilute your life, if you live in the reality of your identity and purpose on Sundays, but you live Monday to Saturday with a dash of consumerism, greed, pride, ego, and selfishness, well, that saltiness is lost in the flavor of your life. You lose your distinction.

You can no longer impact in the way that you were literally created to as salt. In the same way, this passage tells you that you are light. As children of God adopted into his family, you are light as your father is light. His spirit is in you. The nature of light is to push back the darkness. Now in our house when we turn on the light in the morning for our babies, we always say bright light, bright light, bright light. To prepare them for the onslaught of light that is about to hit their blackout curtain-clad rooms, it's jarring. But once you turn on a light, even in the darkest of rooms, the darkness is gone.

The effect light has is unmistakable. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. You will shine forth because of who you are made to be, but if you put a light and hide it under a bowl, if you hinder its ability to shine out into the world, then it's only able to light up the space under the bowl. Under the bowl, it cannot give light to everyone in the house, as the verse says. So we see the effects of salt and light, but do you notice who they are for? The salt brings distinct flavor to whatever it is added to for the sake of the sake of salt. of the one who eats it. The light shines out in the darkness to give light to others, to show them a way in the darkness. And Jesus ends this section of his teaching with this. In the same way, let your light shine

before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. Why? Why listen to this sermon? Why live lives characterized by the beatitudes? Why hear Jesus out on what it looks like to be a disciple who comes up against anger, lust, divorce, anxiety, generosity, prayer, your enemies? Well, because you are salt and light. You were created to infect the bland, dark places of the world and transform them into delicious, bright, and vibrant havens. You were made to spread the boundaries of God's kingdom to the end of the earth. All the way back in Genesis 1, God tells us that there was a garden, a place where everything was bright and delightful.

And in verse 27 and 28, we find what scholars often refer to as the cultural mandate. This is the moment where God looks at man and at woman and tells them who they are and what they were made for. He tells them that they are made in his image created to be like him, and that their calling is to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth and rule over it all. You see, God is speaking to a man and a woman living in the confines of a garden. Eden is a place on earth, and here he tells them to go out and spread that garden. It's goodness, their rule, to the ends of the earth. Now we know that they rebel in chapter 3, but God wasn't done. He went to Abraham and chose him. He said, I will make you a nation.

I will give you a promised land, a peace of the earth, and you will live as my people so that you can bless the nations around you. Do you see the theme? See, God establishes his rule over a garden, over a nation. He gives parameters. He calls him to obedience to be set apart so that they can go out to the ends of the earth, and bless the people, to rule, to spread the boundaries of God's rule to all of creation as image bears, as people who are like him, who are given authority, who live different,

distinct, garden dwellers, the people of God. And now in Jesus, disciples, followers of the king, citizens of the kingdom of God, disciples of Jesus, they follow him, they become like him, They are transformed into who they were created to be, to be like God, his image bearers, so that they can go out and be salt and light for the watching world, distinct, impactful, spreading the boundaries of God's kingdom. That is our why. And it's the same why we find all the way back in Genesis. Jesus is preaching to his disciples, telling them, reminding them,

who they were made to be and what they were made to do. Don't stifle your God-given, transcendent, glorious, beautiful identity, your purpose, who you were made to be. Don't dilute your distinctiveness. Don't hide your darkness overcoming light. Let it flourish. Live in the ways of the kingdom become like the one you follow so that the world will see the difference and will know who God is and give him glory.

Bring the outsider in, bless the watching world, be the hands and feet of Jesus. Spreading the goodness of the kingdom of God. See, obedience it isn't just for you, it's for the sake of others. For the sake of the world to live distinct, holy, set apart lives for the glory of God and for the sake of your neighbor. But the watching world may be blessed by the people of God, brought into his fold, and living as salt and light, and his beautiful. beautiful, bright, and flourishing kingdom. Amen.

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