On Being Salt

Of course, God has set other restraining influences in the community.  He has Himself established certain institutions in His common grace which curb man’s selfish tendencies and prevent society from slipping into anarchy.  Chief among these are the state (with its authority to frame and enforce laws) and the home (including marriage and family life).  These exert a wholesome influence in the community.  Nevertheless, God intends the most powerful of all restraints within sinful society to be His own redeemed, regenerate, and righteous people.  As R. V. G. Tasker puts it, the disciples are “to be a moral disinfectant in a world where moral standards are low, constantly changing, or nonexistent.”

From: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture by John R. W. Stott; the Bible Speaks Today series (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1978), p. 59.  Comment on Matthew 5.13.

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) was Rector of All Soul’s Anglican Church, Langham Place, in London, England, from 1950 to 1975.  After his retirement, he carried on an extensive writing and speaking ministry.

 

On the Beatitudes

Their simplicity of word and profundity of thought have attracted each fresh generation of Christians, and many others besides.  The more we explore their implications, the more seems to remain unexplored.  Their wealth is inexhaustible.  We cannot plumb their depths.  Truly, “we are near heaven here” (F. F. Bruce). – John R. W. Stott (1921-2011)

 

The Sermon on the Mount

Only a belief in the necessity and the possibility of a new birth can keep us from reading the Sermon on the Mount with either foolish optimism or hopeless despair.  Jesus spoke the Sermon to those who were already His disciples and, thereby, also the citizens of God’s kingdom and the children of God’s family (e.g., Matthew 5.16, 48; 6.9, 32-33; 7.11).  The high standards He set are appropriate only to such.  We do not – indeed, could not – achieve this privileged status by attaining Christ’s standards.  Rather, by gaining His standards or, at least, approximating to them, we give evidence of what, by God’s free grace and gift, we already are.

From: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture by John R. W. Stott; The Bible Speaks Today series (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1978), p. 29.  Comment on Matthew 5.1-2.

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) was an English conservative Anglican pastor, theologian, New Testament expositor and author.  He was Vicar of All Soul’s Anglican Church, Langham Place, London, England, from 1950 to 1975, after which he engaged in a worldwide speaking and writing ministry.