How Does Salt Lose Its Saltiness?

Reading: Luke 14:34-35; Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50

³⁴"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." (Luke 14:34-35)

A couple Sundays ago I was teaching through Luke 14. (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner – Are You?) I presented the end of that chapter as an application for Jesus' disciples of what the whole chapter had been about. I won't repreach the whole chapter here, but merely pick up in Luke 14:25-27. In the context of the whole chapter, I loosely paraphrased those verses as:

Large crowds are traveling with Jesus, so he turns to them and asks, “Do you want to be healed from your dropsy—your greed, self-interest, love of the praise of men? Or, are you just along for the ride?

Following Jesus Will Cost You

Luke 14 is about Jesus freeing us from our craving for others to think good of us. He does this by taking hold of our lives and calling us to His banquet. A banquet of misfits, if you will. But there is a price to pay in order to be healed of our dropsy! When you accept Jesus' invitation to His banquet, it may be your last invitation. It is as if you hate your close family (these are the ones that were on your own invite list in Luke 14:12) but now that you associate with “those people” you will often be rejected. But so was Jesus.

The cross you bear will be bearing the shame that is often heaped on the little ones you are now associating with. In the case of the early church, disciples were often rejected by their Jewish relatives. In our culture today, to be associated with Christians is increasingly going to cost us. I've never seen an episode of Duck Dynasty, and honestly have no idea what it is really about, but recent events in pop-culture show how one might go from the top of the dung heap to the bottom when we do not play by the social rules of the world around us.

After speaking about the cost of being a disciple, Jesus tells two brief parables warning us not to start following Him if we aren't going to finish. In the tower parable (Luke 14:28-29) the point is: Make sure you finish what you start or you will face ridicule. In the war parable (Luke 14:30-32) the point is similar: You better be able to finish or you will be in a precarious situation.

Both of these little parables lead to the punch line (Luke 14:33) which I paraphrase as follows:

If you are going to start as my disciple, you'd better be willing to say good-bye to everything you have (respect, esteem, possessions), or you won't make it.

This is what precedes the “salt is good...” comment by Jesus in Luke 14:34-35. These verses are not easy to understand. During my Christian life I have heard or read a variety of explanations of this that have remained unsatisfying to me. In the context of Luke 14, the meaning may be clearer.

Salt and Relationships

First, in classical Greek to have eaten a bushel of salt together, meant to be old friends, or to be bound by ties of hospitality.¹ Said another way, to eat salt with one is to partake of his hospitality, to derive subsistence from him; and hence he who did so was bound to look after his host's interests.² Salt symbolized loyalty and friendship.³

“If the salt loses its saltiness,” in the context of Luke 14 (with the host of the wedding banquet being shunned by all his invitees), then could stand as a warning that when you follow Jesus and begin to associate with His guests, you will loose your saltiness (ties of hospitality) to your former friends. You will lose any commitment they had to your well-being.

“It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out,” means that those same friends would have no more use for you. Therefore, the warning is similar to the previous parables: if you change your mind later because discipleship is too hard, your old friends (in this case the upstanding-rule-following-Jews) aren't going to suddenly like you again. They will be concerned for what you might cost them.⁴

If this understanding of the salt parable is right, it stands as another warning to make sure you count the cost. Figuring out later that you can't finish will leave you not only without the new community of Christ, you will also have lost your old self-serving relationships as well. Then what will you do?

Salt and Being Trampled Underfoot

This understanding of the parabolic use of salt also fits well in Matthew's Gospel where similar language is used.

¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. ¹³"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

In the context of persecution, Jesus says it differently here than in the context of Luke 14. The last phrase reads, “except to be thrown out and trampled by underfoot.” Sounds like persecution to me. It could be read, “You are the salt of the land/soil. (The word there can be "earth" or "ground" or "land".) If Jesus meant ground there rather than how we usually read it (world/earth), that would change the sense. For more on that, see footnote 4 above.

Once again this verse could be referencing how the world will treat us when we become a follower of Jesus. To them we will lose our saltiness, the savoriness in our relationship, and they will trample us underfoot (persecution).

Have Salt Among Yourselves

The Gospel of Mark's use of salt adds an interesting twist.

Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other. (Mark 9:50)

If this means the same as I propose in both Luke and Matthew, Jesus speaks of our losing the saltiness to the world (ties of hospitality, loyalty in friendship), but then says we are to “have salt in or among yourselves”. In following Christ, we will indeed be rejected by many, but we are “to be bound by ties of hospitality” to each other. We are called to embrace the other guests at Jesus banquet (the church) as our family and friends. Have salt in yourselves (the church) and be at peace with one another.

Love the Gospel, Live the Gospel, Advance the Gospel,

Jerry

1New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.

2Easton's Bible Dictionary

3International Standard Encyclopedia

4As to how salt was ever fit for the soil or the dung heap vs. unfit for it, David Garland notes: The text does not say that it is unfit to be used on food, but unfit for the earth or the dung heap. Malina claims that Jesus develops the point from the concrete picture of the outdoor Palestinian earth-oven or kiln, called earth (see Ps 12:6; Job 28:5). Fire in such an earth-oven was produced by burning dung. To make the dried dung burn, the bottom of the kiln was faced with plates of salt, and the dung itself was sprinkled with salt. The salt served as a chemical agent that helped the dung to burn. However, over time, the heat of the oven would cause the salt plates to undergo a chemical reaction which made the salt plates impede and stifle the burning of the dung. It is when the salt crystals chemically change that they must be thrown out — the salt has lost its saltiness. [Garland, David E.; Clinton E. Arnold (2012-01-03). Luke (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) (Kindle Locations 15111-15116). Garland references Malina, The New Testament World, 119.]

What is Your Spiritual Epistemology?

Reading: Ezekiel 37

“What is your spiritual epistemology?” is just another way of asking, “How did you come to know the Lord?” Ezekiel speaks a lot about knowing the Lord. This book reveals two ways to know Him. Ezekiel 37 points us to the second way we can know the Lord.

Making Dead Bones Live

Ezekiel is brought by the Spirit to the middle of a valley full of bones—dead, sun-bleached, dry bones. They covered the surface of the valley. He is asked a question by the Spirit. “Can these bones live?”

One might quickly answer with an obvious, “No.” However, Ezekiel has already been brought by the Spirit of the Lord into a valley, and given his history with the Lord, He wisely answer, “Lord God, only You know.” This is followed first by a description of what the Lord is going to do in making them alive.

The Lord makes them alive in two phases. Ezekiel speaks to the bones, prophesying that they will be made alive. As He does, the bones come together, tendons and flesh grown on them, and skin covers them. Now Ezekiel stands before a valley of very nice looking dead people. They no longer look like the dead dry bones they were, but they are every bit as dead as before.

Then Ezekiel is told to speak to the wind, or breath. The Hebrew word for wind, breath, and spirit are all the same. Here, an allusion to all three is evident. Breath comes from the four winds, that wind is clearly the breath of life (as Adam received in the garden), and that wind is a work of the Spirit of God bringing new life, new birth, as He blows on these “corpses”. The once dead dry bones covering a valley floor is now a vast army standing on its feet.

Resurrecting the People of God

I've described the scene, but what does all this mean? We are told.

¹¹Then he said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.' ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord." (Ezekiel 37:11-14)

At the time of Ezekiel's experience in this valley of dry bones, Israel was scattered to the ends of the earth. Note the expression in 37:11, “the whole house of Israel”. This is not merely a reference to the southern kingdom of Judah which was in captivity in Babylon, but also to the northern kingdom which had long before gone into captivity into Assyria, and never returned when Assyria fell. This is a promise to bring back to life what is obviously very dead. God is going to resurrect a people for Himself, gathering them from the four winds of the earth.

I cannot help but think this is the background to Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:7-10. There Jesus speaks of being born again (coming to life again), and how it will happen as the wind (spirit, breath) blows where it wishes. Sounds like the wind of Ezekiel 37. If this is so, it may also explain why Jesus expresses that as a teacher of Israel, Nicodemus should understand these things. Nicodemus should have known Ezekiel 37 and the new birth it pictures.

Two Ways to Know the Lord

There is something else that stood out to me as I read through this chapter. To this point in Ezekiel, we have been told more than 40 times that people will know the Lord as a result of His wrath (expressed in one form or another) because they had forsaken Him. Here however, we are introduced to another way that one might know the Lord: The Lord will make dead people alive and they shall therefore live and know the Lord!

⁵Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 37:5-6)

¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord. (Ezekiel 37:12-14)

Note the order: God makes them alive, putting breath in formerly dead people. Then they know that He is who He declares Himself to be—the Lord. It isn't that they finally figure out who God is and submit to Him and they are made alive. Rather, in their dead state (think dry bones scattered across a valley) God has someone speak to them (speak to the bones) and pray for them (speak to the Spirit/wind), and the Spirit blows where He wills and gives them life and then they know Him.

This reminds me of something else Jesus said in John 3.

Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

Again, note the order. It does not say, “Unless one sees the kingdom he cannot be born again.” Rather, “Unless one is born again (made alive by the Spirit of God) he cannot see the kingdom.” Dead people don't see.

There are then, two ways to know the Lord. Left to ourselves, we will know Him when He gives us what our deeds deserve—judgment. This is not the way I want to know Him. Rather as believers, we rejoice that He gave us life even while we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-6). Because of that, we now know Him. Oh the riches of the grace of God.

Like Ezekiel, we are called to speak to dead bones, and pray and ask the Spirit to blow life into people. God resurrects the dead before our eyes and they know Him. This is our confidence in evangelism: God desires to make Himself known.

Love the Gospel, Live the Gospel, Advance the Gospel,

Jerry