Be Salty

“Have salt in yourselves and be at peace.” These words of Jesus raise some interesting questions. There is at once a question of interpretation. The second principle of Bible interpretation (the first being to ask for the Spirit’s guidance) is to seek to understand the words as the original audience would have. I learned a great deal about salt in the ancient world when I looked into it. I have long known of its several uses: preserving, flavoring, healing. These are the properties I have often heard applied to this curious word of Jesus to His disciples. I always felt there must be more to it.

It surprised me to find that salt was valued almost as dearly as gold or silver in the ancient Near East. It was valued for the properties we all know, and it was rare enough to have what we would call monetary value because of that. I had always thought of the Dead Sea, also known as the Salt Sea, as a waste of space. Not so! It was more like a gold mine. The people of that region could extract salt from the sea water through evaporation or mine it from the salt flats surrounding the sea. They would then find a ready market to exchange their salt for money or goods they had need of.

There is another important use of salt that Jesus’ listeners would have been well aware of: it was a necessary ingredient in the sacrifices they offered at the altar of God. The priests were required to sprinkle salt on the grain offerings, and some commentators believe it was used on other sacrifices as well. Yahweh God never explained why the salt was important, but one can imagine that its natural properties could be applied in a supernatural sense. Commanding its use as a holy ordinance leant a quality of holiness to the salt itself.

There is one more meaning for salt that a first-century Jew would have known very well. Three times in the Old Testament the term covenant of salt is used. A covenant of salt symbolized a permanent, loyal, and unbreakable agreement. According to Jan Paron, “In terms of an agreement initiated by God, salt symbolized preservation of covenant with Him against corruption.” One of the occurrences of a covenant of salt is God’s promise to David to place an eternal king on David’s throne one day.

Jesus, the king promised to David, used salt in another passage that isn’t immediately clear to modern readers. In Mark 9, He mentioned that His hearers would be “salted by fire” in reference to a time of judgment. This statement comes immediately after Jesus’ hyperbole suggesting they cut off offending body parts that might keep them from entering the kingdom. Just as salt can preserve meat to keep it from spoiling, fire is used to refine gold and increase its purity. Paul used this metaphor when he told the Corinthians that their works would pass through fire to either prove them genuine or to burn them up as unworthy.

Being salted by fire may also refer to times of trial that are often part of the cost of discipleship. James and Peter both point to trials as an occasion for growth in believers. I was reminded recently of the observation that our spiritual growth is generally more intense during hard times than when everything is going well. It is easy to ignore the daily grace we enjoy with a full stomach and light heart. When the tough times come, as they certainly will, we are forced to rely on the strength of the One who is greater than we are.

Jesus appears to have coined the phrase “salt of the earth.” It has come to mean a stout-hearted person who is trustworthy and true. It is more meaningful to us as Christians. Combine the first century understanding of the priestly use of salt with the knowledge that we are a royal priesthood and you get an interesting take on Romans 12:1-2. Our living sacrifice is “salted” to present it as holy to God, and to make it effective at producing good works according to His will.

We should be sacrificially salting the earth with holy and righteous judgment, but we must do it in a loving way. The Mosaic law was one of strict commandments. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus summed up the whole law in these words: “You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Salt has been used for thousands of years for treating wounds. Though it will be painful, there is no more loving thing you can do than to treat your neighbor’s sin-wounds with salt.

I have one more salt-related thought before I finish. One of the first things triage medics do with injured patients is begin a saline drip – infuse them with salt. Here is the medical explanation: “Today, saline solution is used in medicine to cleanse wounds and help promote healing… This is because saltwater helps to clean and promote healing by a process called osmosis. Salt… forces the liquid in cells to move out of the body when it comes in contact with them. If there is bacteria in the liquids, it is forced out too, helping to cleanse the skin.”

I can’t imagine a better metaphor for what God’s Word does for a convicted sinner. Jesus directed His followers to, “Have salt in you and be at peace.” We can have peace knowing that we have done our Lord’s will if we are being the salt of the earth. We do our priestly duty by salting our sacrifice, and the “salt” aka God’s Word will do its work. Therefore, I recommend this to you: “Be salty, my brothers and sisters.”

 Related Posts: The Burning Bush Today; Paging Phinehas Eleazar; Encounters With Eliphaz

Called Versus Chosen

In his Gospel, Matthew records Jesus’ parable about a king who had a wedding feast. The people he originally invited declined to come, so he directed his servants to go into the streets and invite anyone who was willing to come. As I wrote in “Many Called; Few Chosen,” first century weddings had strict social expectations. One was that the guests would dress appropriately. In Jesus’ parable, one guest failed to wear acceptable garments, so the king threw him out to a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. That seems harsh. The parable ends with this curious statement by Jesus: “For many are called but few are chosen.”

In the previous chapter, Matthew says that the Pharisees knew Jesus was addressing them directly. We can see clearly that in the parable, the king represents God, and the original invitation represents the call of Abraham and his descendants, Israel. God called Israel His own nation. We can also see that Israel repeatedly declined God’s invitation. From our perspective, it is obvious the street people represent God’s invitation to the Gentile nations that the prophets foretold. This upset the Pharisees, and they wanted to do something about Jesus, but their hands were tied because of His popularity.

I want to differentiate between “called” and “chosen.” The Greek word for called is very much like the English word; it means called, summoned, or named. Likewise, chosen is a good English translation; however, the Greek carries a more explicit meaning and is often translated as “elect.” The implication is that the elect are favored among the called. Both in Abraham’s day and ours, there is a dual nature to the election from among the called.  Abraham confirmed God’s call on his life by choosing to place his faith in the One who called. Paul draws a sharp line between the mere biological descendants of Abraham and the true elect by pointing out that Abraham’s choice to believe is what constituted righteousness. Being called Abraham’s descendant did not ensure election to righteousness. Only faith did that, and faith is a choice.

I believe there is a similar division between the called and the chosen in the church today. A person may make a profession of faith; he may walk an aisle; he may even be baptized. None of those prove his faith. James said, “I will show you my faith by my works.” Even here we find a distinction. Jesus predicted that many would come to Him on the last day and proclaim their belief and tout their works. His shocking response may be, “Depart from me; I never knew you.” Faith is the ground; works are the fruit. A bad tree, an improperly rooted tree, cannot produce good fruit, Jesus said. It is the heart, the innermost being that produces either good or evil. That is what identifies the elect.

Here is what it might look like to be called but not chosen. I have known businessmen who called themselves Christians but broke the laws they could get away with, misled (lied to) customers, reneged on promises if they became too costly, and lied on their income tax returns. A Christian who is a businessman is different from a Christian businessman. Being “called” a Christian is not the same as being a Christian – being among the elect.

I once worked at a Christian school that could not abide my insistence that all truth is God’s truth, and the Bible is the foundation of all wisdom. They wanted to make Bible an elective course. They wanted to be the best college prep school in town, and they were afraid being too “Christian” would scare away potential students. They replaced me with a retired public-school administrator to fulfill their vision. A visit to their website today reveals that they have reverted to the type of Christian school I envisioned. Apparently, the college prep idea didn’t work out.

I once knew a pastor who had a long ministry preaching the Word effectively and appearing to live an exemplary life. Then he became obsessed with numbers as he saw churches drawing crowds of thousands into beautiful buildings. We were outgrowing our facility, so a building program was begun. A substantial windfall in a property sale gave the church a savings account of about one million dollars. The pastor promised the congregation that no money would be borrowed to build. Somewhere in the process, he fell in love with an architect’s proposal that would cost millions to complete. Despite his pledge not to borrow, he convinced the people to start the project which resulted in a two-million-dollar mortgage for the first of three phases. Within a few years, the bank was forcing foreclosure, and the congregation had to move. Today they are a mere shadow of what the church had once been.

I believe God calls every human in one way or another. Paul argues that no one can plead ignorance of God’s existence. In the next chapter he adds that conscience is a universal judge of everyone’s behavior, either excusing or accusing them on the day of judgment. Our Savior died for all people, but the gift of saving grace comes through faith, and faith is a choice – an election. When faith is presented as an alternative, everyone can elect to believe or not believe.

It will be necessary to go one step further in defining words. Belief has many shades of meaning. Go back to James: belief must be attended by works. He goes so far as to say the demons believe, but theirs is not a saving belief; it is a trembling belief. Often, demons claim to know who Jesus is as He is casting them out. I see that as a peek behind the curtain revealing the cosmic nature of Jesus’ ministry on earth. Demons are thought to be fallen angels who sided with Satan when he tried to seize power from God. This would imply that they knew the second person of the trinity intimately. Yet their knowledge did not produce faith. I think James meant this to be a caution for those who profess to know about God but never truly know Him and trust Him with their lives.

People love to quote Paul’s word to the Ephesians that we are saved by faith/belief not works. Those people often fail to read one verse further where Paul said we are saved to do works that God has prepared for us. We are not saved by works; we are saved to work. I believe this is what Jesus was getting at when He said many are called but few are chosen. Many who call themselves Christians are happy to think they will go to heaven when they die, but they choose not to do the work that has been prepared for them on earth before they leave. These people will be among the surprised professors who will be told by Jesus, “Depart from me; I never knew you:” called but not chosen.

Related Posts: What is Church?; Bringing the Kingdom; Many Called; Few Chosen

The Exception to the Rule

Humans are rule-breakers by nature. It began with Adam’s disregard for the one prohibition in the Garden. He broke it, and ever since, we have been prone to follow in his footsteps. The well-known proverb says that to every rule there is an exception. Perhaps that is just an excuse people use to cover their indiscretions, but it has the ring of truth to it. The Farlex Dictionary of Idoms says, “The saying simply means that real-life situations are messy. Policies often bend for special circumstances.” The Bible has plenty of examples of policies being bent by heroes and villains alike.

Abram told the half-truth that his lovely wife was his sister to keep himself out of the king’s sights – twice. Jacob and his mother, Rebekka, told a whopper to poor blind Isaac to cement Jacob’s inheritance over the rightful claim of his brother Esau. Afraid the lie would come back to bite him, he ran to his uncle Laban’s ostensibly to find a wife, but equally to hide from his brother’s wrath. He then proceeded to run a complex breeding scam on Laban to pay him back for his dastardly sister-wife swap with Leah and Rachel. His own sons told an awful lie after they disposed of their father’s very favorite son, Joseph. Joseph parried a lie of omission into the motivation to get his wayward brothers to bring the family to Egypt. Jacob’s son Judah produced a son from an incestuous relationship who would have a prominent place in the genealogy of the Messiah.

Speaking of the Messiah, Jesus did some rule breaking of His own; at least, that is what the Pharisees would have called His miscreant behavior. He regularly healed on the Sabbath; gasp! He led His disciples through a field where they “harvested” grain for their seventh-day meal. When the Pharisees brought Him a woman taken in the act of adultery, He skillfully defused the situation by questioning their motives. He became angry and drove the money changers and their beasts from the Temple with a whip He fashioned from cords. He intentionally withheld an important aspect of His mission from His followers for two years by omitting to say that He would eventually be executed and they would become hunted as heretics. In each of these instances, it was the Savior's love that grounded His actions.

All of this proves to me that although Yahweh is a God who is always truthful and makes rules for His people, He is adept at conforming our rule breaking into His ultimate plan for our good, even when that rule breaking is committed by the perfect Lamb of God – or especially where the Lamb was concerned. One cannot miss how grievously the Father broke His own rule about child sacrifice. The Sanhedrin heard a prophetic statement from its leader when he said, “It is profitable for you that one man should die for the people, and the whole nation not perish.” The immensity of this breakage is amplified by the knowledge that the Father and the Son knew this would be the outcome of their redemption plan hatched before the world began.

So, where does this leave us as mere humans struggling to trust and obey. I think it leaves us in a quandary. We know that God has given us His Word for adequate “doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.” However, the Word also says that the approved workman will “rightly [divide] the Word of truth.” (KJV) The literal Greek for that phrase is “straightening the Word of truth along a straight path.” In other words, an approved workman will not bend the truth for his own benefit. But it leaves open the interpretation that the “straight path” may require some “straightening” of the Word. I think the essence here is that we need to follow the spirit of the teaching and not necessarily hold to an ironclad literal application.

Well-meaning Christians in the antebellum South of this country straightened the Word to support their version of slavery. The abolitionists were appalled; we should be too. Degrading humans made in God’s image to less than human status was inexcusable. Paul’s advice to slaves was in a context far different from the plantations of the American South in 19^th century America. Yet, the plantation owners used biblical evidence in their defense. A similar “straightening” of the Word is happening today with regard to the crisis of gender dysphoria. I listened to a trans “priest” preach that God is trans according to her/his interpretation of Scripture. That much straightening is heartrending – rending mine and God’s.

I have witnessed many aberrations in the application of the Word by sincere Christians. Early in my Christian education ministry, I faced a school board of hyper-fundamental Baptists who rebuked me for allowing a school-sponsored trip to hear a contemporary Christian concert. There were guitars and drums in the band. Horrors! My teachers loved it; their students loved it; the parents loved it. The board hated it. In that case, I have to insist that the board completely misinterpreted Scripture in their objection, but they thought they were making a “straight” application.

I think we are treading on dangerous ground when we claim that our human policies represent the straightest application of God’s Word. The Pharisees in Jesus’ time were dead certain that they were right and He was wrong. Jesus rebuked them saying, “You splendidly ignore the commandment of God so that you can keep your tradition,” aka human policies and procedures. The slavers of the nineteenth century were wrong. The twentieth century Baptists who forbade dancing and movies and playing cards were wrong – at least in part. I believe we err when we place adherence to policies above the needs of the people we are meant to serve or reach with the gospel. Sometimes, there are righteous exceptions to the rules. Love demands that we get that straight.

Related Posts: Values Clarification; The Knowledge of Good and Evil

The Nations Rage

Psalm 2 opens with this curious depiction of political realities: “Why are nations in tumult, and countries plotting in vain? The kings of the earth establish themselves, and the rulers conspire together against Yahweh and his anointed: ‘Let us tear off their bonds and cast their cords from us!’ He who sits enthroned in the heavens laughs. The Lord derides them.” I think this is a peek behind the curtain so to speak. I wrote at some length in “Who Are the Other Gods” about this mystery – a mystery for some anyway. We are told that God “breathed” His word to His holy writers, and that they were “moved along” by His Spirit to put His thoughts into words. That we miss the meaning of some of those words should not be surprising since His ways and His thoughts are high above ours.

Yet Jesus also promised that the Holy Spirit would come to guide us into all truth. If we apply ourselves to the study of God’s Word diligently as Paul recommended to Timothy, the Spirit can give us insight into the mysteries of God’s purpose. I don’t want to focus on politics, but because this is a mid-term election year, and because our two-party system is in such a factious state, it might be good to step back and rediscover who is really in control. The nations rage, as the King James puts it, and God laughs. But there is more to that picture than human actors playing parts on the earthly stage.

Throughout the Old Testament, we are offered glimpses of the real battle that is going on at a cosmic level. I mentioned several examples of this in “The Evolution of God.” In Psalm 2, we see the arrogance of the “kings of the earth and the rulers.” I believe “kings” and “rulers” refer to two different classes of beings. Kings are obviously earthly leaders. However, in both the Old and New Testament, the word rulers is consistently used to refer to spiritual powers. Paul famously said our battle is against “world rulers of this darkness,” which he then identifies as, “spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Speaking of His ultimate purpose on earth, Jesus declared, “Now is the judgment of this world! Now the ruler of this world will be thrown out!” He echoed this twice in His final discourse. (Jn. 14:30; 16:11)

When Yahweh created the separate nations by His judgment of the Tower of Babel builders, He did more than confuse their language. Language is an integral part of any culture, so Yahweh indirectly created different cultures that each went their own way from the Plain of Shinar. The Old Testament record clearly states that all the nations under heaven were in the thrall of various demi-gods – small “g” gods who were the compatriots of the Angel of Darkness and complicit with him in his rebellion against their Creator. We are told that the angels who rebelled were “thrown to the earth,” a condition which positioned them to tempt Adam and Eve resulting in the curse upon the perfect earth Yahweh had created, and the deposing of God’s chosen ruler over earth, Adam.

When Yahweh called Abram to start His favored nation, He sent him to a land which was crawling with lesser gods who controlled different regions of the promised land. The oracles against the nations that we find in several Old Testament prophets reveal God’s distinct displeasure with the behavior of the angelic beings who had made it their business to influence humans to commit all sorts of wicked behavior. Idol worship is itself a detestable thing to Yahweh, but He repeatedly mentions such abominations as ritual prostitution and infant sacrifice to these demon-gods. The reason God gives Abram for delaying his acquisition of the land is curious: “The guilt of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

Yahweh says that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that He wishes all men would come to salvation. In this we can see His patient endurance that gives time for repentance. Those statements were ostensible spoken of humans, but can we not assume that He feels similarly toward the heavenly cohort of His creation? We tend to forget that the angels were created before humans, and they are “higher” than us in God’s creation order. Paul implies that the mystery of the gospel is now being made known “to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places through the church.” I picture Yahweh speaking to His heavenly audience saying, “Watch this! I am going to show you how much I love my creation.”

This makes me wonder what Yahweh thinks about the current world-rulers in the heavenlies. I have no trouble imagining Hitler, Pol Pot, Iddi Amin, or the Iranian Khamenei as under the influence of demons. We can also extrapolate from Scriptural evidence that God uses evil regimes to move His plan forward so that He may yet be disciplining His people through them as I suggested in “Today’s Chaldean Chastisement.” Someone has said that in a representative democracy such as ours, the people get the rulers they deserve. Our society has changed dramatically since it ceased to be “one nation under God,” and the Bible was removed from the public square. America was never a Christian nation per se, but biblical principles undergirded our founding documents and flavored our culture for nearly two hundred years. No longer. That cannot be pleasing to God!

I think it is beyond likely that the disgusting moral condition of modern society is being driven by heavenly rulers through their earthly minions. The dissolution of biblical marriage and the acceptance of all manner of sexual perversion will do more to destroy Western society that any invading army could ever do. I once read that the elevation of sexual perversion has historically preceded the fall of every society we know of. The family is the foundation of any culture, and once it is degraded, the fabric of society must necessarily be torn apart.

There is a passage in Zechariah similar to many others in the prophets where God says, “And many nations will join themselves to Yahweh in that day and will become My people. Then I will dwell in your midst, and you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent Me to you.” In that context, Zechariah is speaking about the coming of the “Branch,” aka the Messiah, our King and Savior, Jesus Christ. Although we still live in a world where nations rage, we know that the rulers in the heavenlies have been defeated. It is our Christian duty to elect representatives to government who are least likely to be influenced by evil rulers. Nations rage; God laughs. But He also cries. Remember, although the nations were separated at Shinar; they are welcomed back into the fold at Calvary. That is the mystery of the gospel.

Related Posts: America Held Captive; Isaiah as a Cautionary Tale; Jesus Wept?; The Cry of Sin