Luke 14:34-35--Salt Without Taste Is Worthless

Luke 14:34-35
English Standard Version
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Salt Without Taste Is Worthless
34 “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 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.”

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Jesus is talking about a lot more just seasoning food with salt here.  The word used for salt that looses its taste or flavor is the same word that we would use to get the word "moron" from.  It's main context is to be foolish or to act foolishly, to make foolish or prove something to be foolish (I think this is what Jesus is talking about in context here based off of how we have just finished talking about the cost of discipleship), or when it comes specifically to salt, "to make flat or tasteless" so that it has lost its strength and flavor.

Jesus' disciples are to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.  In what context does Jesus tell His disciples to be salt?  First is the obvious answer that salt adds flavor and enhances other flavors.  It's a primary seasoning that we use and without it, things don't taste right.  Too much of it though, and the person won't be able to stand it and it will cover up the flavor of anything else.

Salt is also used as a preservative because making something really salty will kill bacteria.  I'm sure that you've see dried, salted meats before that people preserved.  In some ways, Christians are to help prevent the decay in the world.  Along these lines, while painful, you can put salt in an open wound to help disinfect it and help stop the bleeding (it will make the blood coagulate) and help prevent any further infection.  It doesn't feel good at all when that happens, but Jesus' disciples will also work as a purifying agent to help those that have already been injured or infected by sin.

Salt was also extremely valuable and was actually the currency that Roman soldiers were paid in.  This is where we get the phrase about a person "being worth their salt" or "not being worth their salt."  One of the reasons the soldiers were paid in salt was because it was easily recognizable as something necessary for life by all cultures.  Wherever they travelled, people valued salt where they may not value something like gold or silver.  Salt is something that the soldier could also use practically to take care of himself first (to season his own food, to make sure he had gotten enough sodium intake, etc) before cashing in any extra to buy things that he needed from local merchants.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive lists of all the ways that salt works (for instance it can also be used to help conduct electricity, sometimes can help balance pH, and in high levels can make soil toxic and will inhibit or kill plant growth just as a few examples).  The points I've discusses are most likely ways that the people heard and understood and they are the uses that Jesus has outlined in other parallel text--taste/flavor, prevention of decay, and its value as currency.

So, let's think of these things in what Jesus is saying in regards to a disciple.  Those who belong to Christ should have a certain distinct "flavor" about them that in the right proportion should be desirable and tasty.  It should make people thirsty (something I forgot to mention before about one of the attributes of salt) and they should desire to come back for more.  Pour it on too strong though and it's no longer appetizing as it covers up all the other flavors and you can no longer eat the food.  I don't think Jesus is talking about someone pouring it on too thick, though that is a danger, because He specifically is talking about something His disciple has lost.  Salt's main purpose is as a seasoning and a flavor enhancer.  That is what gives it its identity and how people test it--they can taste its salinity to know how strong the salt is.  So it is with disciples of Jesus that the world should be able to sense the Holy Spirit living in us and working through us as potently as they can taste and even "smell" salt because it dries up the mucus membranes in their nose.

So how would you get tasteless salt?  Well, if you had uncovered, unprotected salt piles that were left to the elements, and it rained on them, the water would break down the bonds between the sodium and chloride ions that form table salt, and you'd have a crystal that appeared to look like salt, but it would have none of the properties of salt because that sodium and chloride that make it "salty" were not really present.  I think this is Jesus' point when we look at it in context with the surrounding passages.  There were plenty of people that looked the part, but when put to the taste-test, it was proven that they had no substance or value to what they claimed to be and no one could use them for any of the good purposes stated above.  They were foolish like the book of Proverbs describes a fool and like the saying "you can't fix stupid" which is a related concept here (Jesus warns against calling people "morons" or "moronic" and relates it to calling someone a "fool" because they are connected words), so it is impossible to make the salt effective once it has lost its identity, purpose, usefulness, value, and so on.

A couple ideas on things Jesus might be talking about here based off of real life and some other passages in the Bible.  Luke is still connecting this teaching with the teaching that happened back at the Pharisee's house even though that's no longer the setting there and it is definitely connected with the passage on the cost of being a disciple.  I think this is definitely a warning about those who turn away from their faith and don't persevere until the end--the fancy word for them is "apostates."  The Epistles tell us that such people "went out from among us because they were never of us" to begin with.  No on that is truly part of the Elect will be able to desert and walk away from their faith and that is why Jesus says that anyone who denies Him before men, He will deny that man before the Feather in heaven.

This may also refer to someone who becomes ineffective in their ministry because they have "lost their testimony" by being engaged in gross sin that is completely inconsistent with the identity that they claimed to have in Christ.  Such a man injures the reputation of God and the gospel, often permanently, in the hearts and minds of the people that saw him fall.  That is not to say that we will all be perfect, but there is a difference between engaging in accidental sin and engaging in high-handed sins of rebellion once we are saved.  We talked about this a lot when we studied the Law, and I think it's still helpful to consider that the nation of Israel was called out by God's grace and mercy, just like we are, to be holy and separate living unto the LORD.  They were to have a unique identity among the nations the was like the salt and light that Jesus is calling His disciples to have (they would recognize the parallels here because God hasn't changed what He wants His people to be and do...other than there is not a physical land that He wants us to look to as an inheritance right now).  Israelites could behave in such a way though where they could be excommunicated at a minimum and typically these high-handed sins of rebellion also came at the cost of the man or woman's life--sins like adultery, rape, incest, fornication, homosexuality, beastiality, necromancy, witchcraft, sorcery, divination, being a false prophet, false interpretation of dreams, idolatry (and many things associated with idolatry), breaking the Sabbath, blasphemy, murder, thievery and I'm sure you can find other things as well.  How do you come back from any of these things if you claim to be a Christian?  There is no way to be a "Christian prostitute" or a "Christian embezzler" or even a "Christian drunkard" (the New Testament commands us to not be controlled by spirits, but to be controlled by the Sprit and one of the fruits of the Spirit is be sober-minded/self-controlled).  What if such a person existed who was really genuine in their faith but then they engaged in such an open sin of rebellion against God that denied the power of the gospel to save and transform people?  Is there any coming back from that?  I'll leave you with that question for now and not try to answer it, but I think that Jesus may answer that question for us here too.  I'll post a passage in a minute that I think will connect this idea with what Jesus is saying here, but it's from comparing this text to another text.

So Jesus says that any disciple or so-called disciple who is not worth their salt, even if they have an appearance or form of godliness but they have no substance to them or are not the genuine article or they maybe had something that they lost and can never get back.  Jesus says in any of these cases, they are good for nothing, at least in the here and now, but I think this may be an eternal judgment, and are relegated to the dung pile.  Even the dung is more valuable in this case because it has a purpose and can be used as fertilizer, but the salt adds nothing in this case.  The other option Jesus said in some other gospels is to just throw it out on the road for people to trample on it and grind it down so that it becomes part of the dirt and dust.  Jesus has spoken judgment over those like the Pharisees and many of those who are in the crowd following Him (remember this was the context that made Him start teaching about the cost of discipleship and about genuine disciples, because He saw large crowds following Him).  He is telling them that many of them who think they have something now will lose it or prove they never had it to start off with and when it comes to eternity they will be counted as worthless as or of less value than the dung pile.  This should have conjured up some of the images of the trash dump outside of town too which was a large dung pile where other trash was thrown and there was a constant fire burning there (the people called this place Gehenna, and we often translate this word as "hell.")  I won't be absolutely dogmatic about that because Jesus doesn't mention fire here at all, but I think He's telling them that is the destiny of those who are not the genuine article.

Let me quote this passage from 2 Timothy 3:1-9 before I forget.  Don't worry about who the two men are the Paul is mentioning.  From best I can tell these were the names given to the magicians that were before Pharaoh that tried to, by the power of the devil and their sorcery, trickery and dark arts, impersonate or copy the signs that the LORD had given Moses to prove that he was a genuine messenger from God (see Exodus 7:11 as one example)


2 Timothy 3:1-9
English Standard Version
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Godlessness in the Last Days
3 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

I think that will make it clear that there will be people who appear to be real, but their power does not come from God and by their works you will know them.  All the things that I listed as high-handed sins of rebellion and more are included somehow in this list that Paul gives.  2 Timothy was probably Paul's last letter and his concern towards the end of this letter was to let his protégé, Timothy, know that their would be plenty of people that would try to talk to the talk, but would not walk the walk, especially in the last days.  Timothy was to watch out for such people for himself and also as he watched over the people of God.  We too should be careful to not just believe everyone that calls themselves a "Christian."  Many are as worthless as Jesus and Paul describe in the passages we looked at today.