Luke 14:28-35 - Salt

14:28-30

Jesus uses two parables to illustrate a point, just as He did at the beginning of chapter 13. The first involves someone embarking on a building project. Such a person should ensure that they have the necessary finance in order to complete the project, otherwise they will be left with a half-finished building and look rather foolish. So it is with following Jesus. A wise person needs to be fully aware of the implications. So why is Jesus telling this parable? Doesn’t He want followers? He is not fighting an election when it doesn’t matter why someone votes for you, all votes count equally, nor is he chasing “likes” on a facebook page. This gets to the heart of the gospel. The world belongs to the Lord, but we rebelled against Him, and all of mankind in in rebellion against God. If we choose to follow Jesus then we are choosing to end the rebellion and are choosing to join the Kingdom forces. So we are now in opposition to the world and its rebellion. There is a war going on and being involved in that war will involve a cost.

14:31-33

The second parable illustrates the war aspect of the decision. If we choose to follow Jesus then we have chosen to go to war against Satan. One does not embark on a war unless you are confident of winning. Then Jesus makes clear that the cost of following Him is everything.

There are many issues raised by these two illustrations, I will consider two of them. The first is the aspect of our choice. There are debates between Calvinists and Arminians, or monergism and synergism. Is salvation dependent upon God’s choice or our choice? If we look at the Bible as a whole we see that it does not draw a distinction between the two. It is quite clear that we are completely dependent upon God for salvation, and He is absolutely sovereign and completely able to save. In John’s gospel Jesus says that we did not choose Him, but He chose us. Yet here, and many other places, we see that our response, our choice, is important. So the Bible is equally clear that what we do matters.

The second is that fact that the vast majority of us have not given up everything. So what does this mean? Are we all living a lie in claiming to follow Jesus? No. We must look at the Bible as a whole, and we see that as the gospel spread people still had jobs and possessions. But we also see people who were sent to prison, or even killed, or had possessions confiscated. So we have to be prepared to lose everything.

14:34,35

We then get a further little parable, which just seems to have been thrown in. Perhaps Luke is focusing on the attitudes we should have and one is that we need to persevere, we need to be consistent. Salt can be used as a preservative and to add flavour. The salt in use at the time would contain many impurities, so it would be possible for the sodium chloride to leach out, so salt could lose its saltiness. It was the sodium chloride that was the “active ingredient”, so if that was lost the salt would no longer be any good. So it is with us as individuals and as churches. It is Jesus who is the “salt” in us. It is He alone, through the Holy Spirit, who makes us any good for anything. If we “lose” Him then we are useless and we will be cast off. Organisations or churches may start off in a good way, based on Christian principles, but through time they lose their “Christianity” and become good for nothing.