“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luk 14:34-35, ESV).”
What does it mean to be the ‘salt of the earth?’ What are we saying when we are saying, ‘that person is the salt of the earth?’ Are we saying that the person is a good person? That is how I understand the common usage. Are we saying that for such a person Jesus died on the cross? If so, I suspect that we are using the phrase incorrectly. Or at least we are using it un-biblically.
Imagine the spheres of your life for one second. Imagine drawing a circle on a piece of paper and in the center of it writing ‘family.’ Imagine drawing more circles, each with a label; maybe ‘profession,’ or ‘work,’ or ‘recreation.’ We could be more specific, one might be labeled ‘family,’ ‘immediate family,’ ‘Mission Command Training Support,’ ‘National Guard,’ ‘seminary,’ ‘mountain biking,’ and ‘video games.’ Would there be one that is all encompassing? Would one circle be larger than another?
“To paraphrase Jesus is saying that if you do not love your family less than you love Him then you can not be His disciple.”
Before remarking about the taste of salt Jesus started this conversation by stating, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luk 14:26).” Hate is a strong word. The Greek word here is μισέω or miseō (pronounced mis-eh’-o) and according to Strong’s (G3404) it means hatred, to detest, and by extension to love less and I think it is in this final meaning that our Lord is referring to. To paraphrase Jesus is saying that if you do not love your family less than you love Him then you can not be His disciple. He is even saying that you can not be His disciple if you love your own life more than you love Him. What He is saying is that every sphere of your life, to include life itself, must be contained within the sphere that is acceptance of who He is and the discipleship that must follow. Being a Christian is to place everything within the sphere of Christ.
Now I know Easter is upon us and you might think that I am beginning to build a condemnation of what we pejoratively call Christmas and Easter Christians but I would argue it is as easy to leave Christ behind in the pew on a weekly basis as it is to leave Christ behind in the pew on a semi-annual basis. I am writing as much to regular church goers as I am to irregular church goers.
“To Accept Jesus is to accept His authority to call you to turn your back on every aspect of your life.”
A. W. Tozer, in his work And He Dwelt among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John, identifies five reasons the unbeliever does not accept Jesus. First, to accept Jesus is to accept His authority to call you to turn your back on every aspect of your life; every other sphere. He may not call you to that but He has the authority to do so and that is scary. We value our other spheres. Second, to accept Jesus is to accept His authority to change your habits. “Some people are not going to change their way of living, no matter what (Tozer).” We are stubbornly locked into our spheres even where to label some of them with our addictions. Third, to accept Jesus is to be cleansed. “Some people would rather have the dirt than the Son of God (Tozer).” Far be it from me to argue with Tozer but I don’t know if I would have put this one second. That we love our dirt is confirmed in our refusal to adjust those habits that bring us back into contact with our opportunities to get dirty. Fourth, to accept Jesus is to face a complete redirection of your life. This again follows from the previous reasons but let’s be honest, even for those of us who are not that bad, before Jesus we were so thoroughly soaked in our sin that to give it up was to change directions completely. All of this brings us to the fifth and final reason. “The reason they rejected Christ was that it would have meant faith in the unseen. They would have had to throw themselves on God. They would have to give up their tangible comforts and trust completely in Jesus Christ (Tozer).”
As I reflect on Tozer’s reasons I am struck by Jesus words in Luke 14. To be His disciple is to place every sphere within the sphere of Him. Sadly, how many of us label one of our spheres ‘church’ and want to leave it among the others. Oh, it might be bigger than the others but it still does not contain the others. Heaven forbid we might even label that ‘church’ sphere ‘Jesus.’ All so that we can claim Christianity without actually allowing Christ to claim us. Might this be the condition of the heart that goes before Jesus on the day of judgment who on that day will say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ To which He will reply, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness (Mat 7:22-23).’
“All so that we can claim Christianity without actually allowing Christ to claim us.”
To lose your saltiness as a Christian is to place Christ in the wrong sphere. To retain your saltiness as a Christian is to place every other sphere of your life, to include that very life, within the sphere and the lordship of Jesus Christ. Only then can we bear the cross that we have been given. Paul is communicating this same idea when he writes to the Philippians, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Php 2:5-9).” Jesus placed every sphere of His life under the authority of His father becoming our redeemer and the example of how we should live our lives in this world.
Jesus finishes this thought by telling those around him to count the cost of discipleship. And at first glance you might think that He is warning you that to be His disciple is to risk loosing everything. But when you do the calculus what you find is that He is not pointing to the cost He is pointing to the gain. We are coming up on Easter weekend. We will be celebrating the resurrection of our Lord. A resurrection that guarantees our own resurrection (Rom 6:5). That is the gain that should be considered in sight of the cost. What would you give up to gain that resurrection?
“For whoever, would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Mat 16:25-26)” Do not be deceived! You must be a disciple of Jesus to be saved. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
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Image by andreas160578 from Pixabay
Tozer, A. W. And He Dwelt among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John. Edited by James L. Snyder. Ventura, CA: Regal, 2009.
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