Life of Christ 93
Late in the last summer
of His life, Jesus and His Apostles have recently returned from a weeklong trip
north of Galilee. On arriving back in Capernaum, Peter shot his mouth off about
Jesus paying the Temple tax so Jesus had to bail him out of that one.
Immediately after that, Jesus confronts the Apostles about a private argument
they were having over who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. Our story today
is the next portion of the same continuing conversation (Mark 9.38-50).
This passage tend to be
confusing, and so I want to take the time to carefully establish the context
and content of what Jesus is saying here, and then in the next post I will give
you two very important applications.
We must remember that,
at this point, Jesus is spending the majority of His time and focus on
preparing the Apostles to lead the infant Church after He is gone. In the past
few posts, during the week up north in the mountains, we've seen Him seek to
teach them the importance of prayer, strengthen their faith in Himself via the
Transfiguration, teach them in the first sermon in the Church that spiritual
maturity is the crucified life, and that the Church should be established on
the doctrinal basis of a belief in Himself.
Now, with His arrival
back in Capernaum, He begins a different set of emphases, largely dealing with
how people should relate to each other in the Church. In doing so, earlier in
the day, He has emphasized that we shouldn't give offense, and that we ought
not strive, in ambition, for greatness, but that we ought to be humble, like
little children. He does this, yet again, now later in the same conversation,
albeit from a different angle. Because of this context, I think the entire
point of the whole conversation is found in the last verse. 'Salt is good: but
if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in
yourselves, and have peace one with another' (Mark 9.50).
If I can paraphrase,
Jesus is saying here, 'I want you to keep the peace between yourselves. Do not
make it a priority to stand on your rights. Instead, be careful not to give
offense. Don't jockey for position; be humble. Be at peace one with another.'
The specific issue that
causes this part of the conversation was John bringing up another group of
Christians. This group was not part of the crowd around the Apostles, (they
were perhaps the remnant of the now martyred John the Baptist's group), but at
the same time they did believe in Christ and were doing good things in His name
(Mark 9.38). John told them to stop doing those good works since they weren't
part of the 'official' group directly around Christ, and he then wanted Jesus'
approval of his actions.
Jesus, of course, tells
John the complete opposite. 'But Jesus said, Forbid him not' (Mark 9.39). Jesus
tells John that even if all the other group could do was give away a cup of
cold water in His own name then that was ok (Mark 9.39-41). The main point was
not what this group did or didn't do exactly like Jesus' group, but that they
genuinely believed in and preached Jesus.
He then speaks, again,
about the importance of not offending (Mark 9.42), and follows that by urging
on them the importance of this issue, telling them to do whatever they needed
to do in order to keep from offending (Mark 9.43-48). This section of the
passage is often used, and not inappropriately, in sermons about hell, but that
is not His primary point in context here. Rather He is instructing His Church
to be as quick to stop an offense from spreading as you would be to amputate a
diseased limb that threatens your life.
Then follows what seems,
at first glance, to be a total non sequitur. 'For every one shall be salted
with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt' (Mark 9.49). In
actuality, it flows very well from the previous thoughts and emphases. The
Talmud tells us that every Jewish sacrifice offered at the Temple was salted
prior to being offered, and that actually the wood with which the sacrifice was
offered was also salted. Scripture confirms this in Leviticus 2.13 and Ezekiel
43.24. Now this, obviously, wasn't for taste reasons. No, this was because salt
represented the incorruptible, the pure.
What He is telling the Apostles,
in the context of the conversation, at the very end, was that if they wanted to
keep the purity of the Church intact, and if they wanted to preserve it over
the long term, they needed to focus on their own flaws instead of others' flaws,
and thus keep the peace among the brethren. 'For every one shall be salted with
fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the
salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in
yourselves, and have peace one with another' (Mark 9.49-50).
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