Talking About Sin
Each of the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, have placed stories and dialogue together because they touched on similar themes. That was a common way of writing in the first century. Today we assume that what we’re reading follows chronologically (the order it actually happened). It follows then that we miss a lot of what the gospels are telling us when we pull a story out of its context.
For instance at the end of Mark 9, Jesus talks about our need to ruthlessly discipline our lives so we won’t sin (If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off … [9:44]). The message is clear: so guard carefully what you see, hear and do and where you go. Each has the potential to pull you away from single-eyed devotion to God’s way.
But then Jesus talks about salt. In a parallel account in Luke, Jesus says that salt that’s lost its saltiness is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out (Luke 14:35). In Jesus’ day salt had two main uses, both mentioned here. Salt was not pure and the potash that was mixed with it made it a reasonable fertiliser. This is a positive use. The second use, and again referred to by Jesus here, was that salt was used to disinfect a manure pile. So it was used to promote good growth in the garden (make good things grow) and inhibit the evil and the diseases of the dung hill (stop bad things growing).
Putting the two passages together, the first about ruthlessly dealing with our sin, and the second, promoting good and inhibiting evil, if we are willing to zealously guard ourselves from sin, we will find our lives helping make good things happen around us and stopping bad things happening.
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