Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (Luke 14:34-35)
Forget the tiny white grains that you sprinkle on your food. In Bible times, long before anti-clumping agents and food hygiene standards, salt was crude. Every pinch contained a little dust and grit. When Jesus spoke of tasteless salt, He meant that all the Sodium Chloride had dissolved and washed away, leaving a dirty residue.
Jesus first mentioned salt in the Sermon on the Mount.1 He was speaking to His followers, though a crowd probably overheard. The verses in Luke are part of a mini-sermon about starting a discipleship movement. Jesus returned to the illustration of the salt to summarize what He had been saying:
If the essence of discipleship disappears from our lives, nothing of value remains.
So, what is the essence of discipleship? Surely Jesus has been saying that the essence of discipleship is a single-minded devotion to finishing the task, completing the tower, winning the battle against the odds.
Perhaps it is time to sample the salt in our individual and corporate lives. How do we taste? Are we focused on producing disciple-making disciples and church-planting churches?
Please share Bible Maturity with anyone who would benefit from other Bible devotions like this one.
- Matthew 5:13. [↩]