The salt of discipleship
Luke 14: 34-36 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
Luke is obviously writing to the early Christians and using these words of Jesus to the Jews reminds the early Church that it influences the world and that makes it a better place. Salt.
It ends a passage that was difficult to read as much in our present day as it was for the first Church and as it was for the Jew to hear it. Salt.
The Church.
Salt that has become unfit. Manure is better.
Is that possible that we could become like this? Has it happened?
The world has many family divisions, unfinished towers and we live surrounded by fights.
Discipleship, costly obedience, sacrificial Christianity means that we will be right in the middle of our world influencing it for the good. The world needs the Church to be salt.
Between 2000-2018 I increasingly wept over the price Christians around the world are paying right now to be salt in their communities. This last year, in a new chapter of my life, the Lord has taken me to weep new tears. It is tears for my own nation. It is to weep for ‘Christians’ who carry a deep sense of justice for what should happen in Church, for those whose feelings are hurt, for the offended, the greedy and selfish. The world waits. God is waiting. Will the Church become salty again? Can it?
I believe in resurrection. It comes only after a death. The Church needs to stop displaying the cross and instead get on it. Perhaps discipleship then has a chance. Maybe our world can experience salt.
Missions Paul 