Who does Jesus call blessed?

Not who you might expect. In Matthew 5:1-16, Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount by blessing the poor in spirit, the mourning, and the persecuted. Dr. Toby Holt explains the surprising heart of the Beatitudes.

Many in the crowd were ordinary, hurting people pushed aside by the religious leaders. Instead of more rules, Jesus offered blessing. The Beatitudes lift up the humble and broken — the very people the Pharisees looked down on. Holt contrasts these eight blessings with the eight "woes" Jesus later pronounced on the proud. Then Jesus calls His followers to be "salt" and "light."

Questions this study answers:

1. Who was Jesus speaking to? Ordinary, broken people, many poorly taught by the Pharisees. He met them with blessing rather than burden.

2. How do the blessings differ from the woes of Matthew 23? The Beatitudes bless the humble and lowly; the woes warn the proud religious leaders. One lifts up the broken, the other confronts the self-righteous.

3. What does it mean to be salt and light? To live in a way that preserves what is good and shines God's truth into the world — making a visible difference, not blending in.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 5:3 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.