Mark 9:49-50 (NIV): For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt should lose its flavor, how can you make it salty? Have salt among yourselves and be at peace with one another.”
Salt in Jesus’ day was considered primarily a preservative. It was very valuable because it was the only means of preserving meat. Without salt, meat would be completely inedible in just a day or two.
This saying of Jesus is a cousin to that in the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” (Matthew 5:13 (NIV)
When Jesus talked in Mark about the disciples having salt in themselves, He was pointing to the truth that Jesus’ followers, because of the Holy Spirit’s presence in their lives, have the ability to act as a preservative in society, to keep it from rotting and going bad. But if salt loses its saltiness, if it no longer keeps the decay from taking place, it is worthless. Likewise, if Jesus’ disciples stop acting as a preservative in their society, they become worthless as well, good for nothing but to be thrown into the street and trampled on by men.
Jesus’ urging to the disciples to have salt in themselves, and to be at peace with each other, is an urging for them to keep their focus on the main thing: being a preservative force, keeping society from decaying and rotting by consciously working to expanding the kingdom of God. If they will keep that focus, it will keep them from focusing on worthless things, like who is the greatest one of Jesus’ disciples, and who will get the top spots in His administration, and it will unify them instead of dividing them.
Father, I wonder how many of Your people really understand the power that Your Holy Spirit brings into our lives – the power to be a preservative, to keep our society from sliding into decay. I’m afraid most of us see the decay that seems to be engulfing us these days, and we allow ourselves to fall into a state of despair, pleading with You to do something about it. But we fail to realize that You already have done something about it: You have put us here to act as a preservative, to push the doors of Your kingdom wide open, and urge everyone in, so that our whole society can be changed one life at a time, and preserved from decay. Help us to never lose our saltiness, but to be powerful and effective, working in Your name. Amen.