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. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt explains the surprising heart of the Beatitudes.

Many in Jesus’ audience were ordinary, hurting people who had been 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. Dr. Holt contrasts these eight blessings with the eight “woes” Jesus later pronounced on the proud religious leaders. Then Jesus calls His followers to be “salt” and “light,” changing the world around them rather than blending in.

Questions this study answers:

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

2. How do the blessings of Matthew 5 differ from the woes of Matthew 23? The Beatitudes bless the humble and lowly, while 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? It means living in a way that preserves what is good and shines God’s truth into the world. Believers are meant to make a visible difference, not blend in.

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

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the Matthew Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.