Salt & Light | Jesus makes all of the difference

Our easy access to salt and electricity today clouds the poignancy of this passage in some ways. In Jesus’s day, without access to refrigeration salt was used as a preservative to keep foods fresh. It was extremely expensive, making the use rare and only when truly necessary. Light was similar, natural sunlight was the most accessible form of light. Candles or torches required resources that were only used when truly in need. Therefore, Jesus was calling his disciples to bring something different to their world, something valuable and rare that significantly changed the atmosphere. Salt and light were precious resources that added so much more to a person’s life when they had access to them. Jesus had modeled this for his disciples - he changed every room, every town, every circumstance he entered. Nothing was the same after he arrived. Here he is challenging his disciples to take those same Kingdom resources…and change the world.

Write out Matthew 5:14-16 on a piece of paper. Place that paper where you will see it often. Each time you see it, read the scripture out loud.