Some of the smartest thinkers and theologians who have specialised in studying the Sermon on the Mount suggest that it is actually sequential. Jesus is teaching kingdom truth that once digested and embodied allows a disciple to move on to the next truth and the next and the next. Very much like learning a new set of skills which build upon one’s previous knowledge and competency.

‍

Today we read about followers of Jesus being the salt of the earth. It is significant that Jesus has just taught in the beatitudes that anyone can enter the kingdom. The salty ones who make a difference are not just the super spiritual teachers of the law, or the rich, the popular or the powerful. If you know the king of the kingdom and the ways of the king, you can make a difference in the kings kingdom.

‍

The Apostle Paul expands this idea of the kingdom being open to all with wonderful texts like Colossians 3:10-11. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. The Scythian’s were the barbarian’s barbarian but even they were welcome into the Kingdom through faith in Christ.

‍

Matthew 5:13 makes it clear that we can be followers of Jesus and yet live our lives in such a way that we are unproductive. Believers can lose their saltiness, by not being sufficiently effected by the ways of the kingdom of the heavens.