SALT

ah just new , read some of Steves story . wow
I been fighiting porn for off and on for most of my life. Was raised with adult sexual experences from the age of 4 yrs old.
I was doing real good for a couple of months and then bingo . right back in the trap

I've always just ignored the salt part, on the assumption it's meaning has been lost. I'm sure it made sense at the time, but languages change - whatever the expression meant then, it's no longer in use.

Salt used to be a very valuable luxury good - the romans paid the soldiers partially in salt, thus the expression 'worth his salt,' and even the word salary derives from the latin salis.

I don't see how it would make sense for anyone to instruct the early christians to be a preservative. A flavoring makes a little more sense, but not much. Perhaps it's related to the color - as a substance which achieves a very clean white color when properly ground up, and a rare and expensive one, it seems plausable that salt might have been symbolic of purity or of cleanliness, something that people from the jewish culture would have valued.

The only other mention of salt in the bibleI know of is Lot's wife after God throws his little tantrum, so that doesn't help. I think it's just best ignore the word then, as we can't determine reliably it's intended meaning.

Great post, Steve-Oh! Thanks for illuminating and illustrating such an important verse for us. As Raven says above, I've always passed over the salt part as it never had much resonance for me as a 21st century dude. This post of yours draws out some very challenging and instructive applications for me. I'd never thought about salt making you thirsty, but that's definitely something I could be thinking about more amongst my friends.

So keep up the great work, and thanks for putting in the study behind this post. I can tell you're going to be a great blessing to the community here!

Wow! That was amazing. I watched the episode about this event and was amazed at how those men reacted to you. Lets just way you are loving the lost sheep, and the work you are doing is for the Lord. Thank you for sharing this, I really feel like people will receive healing through these words. So many people are jaded by Christians. Sometimes we forget to be cristocentric and become egocentric. People don't want Christians they want Christ. Keep up representing christ in everything you do!

I feel sorry for those like the two who yell at people as they pass by. They will never really feel the thrill of seeing a life changed by Jesus in the same way that those of us with compassion and understanding do.

Who would gain by condemning sinners to their faces so strongly that the sinners decide once and for all not to care about repentance or even to believe in God? The Devil, perhaps. For those who would come to God must first believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of them who diligently seek him (Heb. 11:6). But what would be the purpose of declaring that God does not love people except to destroy faith in them of God’s existence and his will for their salvation. Who would benefit most of the resulting loss of faith except the Devil, who wishes that we all fail the grace of God?

I don’t know why men rail against sinners, as you have described of the two men, but it is a work of the flesh and just as damnable as fornication or drunkenness. In fact, it is named with them:

But now I have written unto you not to keep company with any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat. (1 Cor 5:11).

What is ‘railing’? It is verbal abuse. It is loud hate speech toward people. But those two railers are a symptom of a disease that has plagued America since its foundation by Europeans: The ungodly desire in so-called ‘believers’ to conform America into a ‘Christian country’ by force of secular law and cultural coercion. But there is no such thing as a ‘Christian country’, since there is no model for it in the New Testament prior to Jesus’s return. The Church age is the age of the ‘called out’. The age of the peculiar people out of all nations who are following Jesus and are zealous of doing good works (Titus 2:14).

The Religious Right treats such railers as righteous front-line fighters of the ‘cause’. But it’s an ungodly cause. The culture war, declare blasphemously in the name of Jesus, must stop now. It is forbidden by scripture:

For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judges. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person (1 Cor. 5:12-13).

We are to do all things to the glory of God, but what glory would God get from such malicious railing? I can think of none. Which aspects of the fruits of the Spirit are revealed in hate speech? Where was such railing against unbelievers ever modeled in the New Testament? The demagogues of the Religious Right stir up people by their railing against sinners, inciting fear and hatred toward others. And to what end? To make their own lives more prosperous and secure. Don’t they know that perfect fear casts out love? Does rialing against sinners show even a hint of God’s love toward them? Love is patient; love is kind. Love hopes all things. Love suffers for righteousness sake.

Are those railers so pure in their own sexual lusts before God that they can in good conscience rail against sinners without even a hint of hypocrisy? I know this: that any person who has ever lusted on an image in porn has been a part of the porn industry. We all recognize the commonality of its origin in our shared fallen humanity: The spirit that lives within us lusts to envy (James 4:5).

One sobering standard to remember for all of us that try to minister God’s love and his message of repentance from sin is this:

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathers not with me, scatters abroad (Matt. 12:30).

So, does the railing of the Religious Right gather in with Jesus or scatter sinners away from him? Young people say it scatters them away. Our churches are being stripped of their young people. Homosexuals say it scatters them away. I know this for a fact because I was an open homosexual for 22 years.

I do not speak of the Religious Right as just an outsider. I used to be a member of it long ago, when it was just beginning with the inception of the so-called Moral Majority and the like. Then in 1980, when the news that John Lennon was murdered, I overheard a person of the Religious Right declare that she was glad he was dead. I was shocked! True, I didn't agree with everything he preached, but I was sorry he died. I still believed that God loved him. But that opened my eyes to the hidden selfish and malicious spirit that motivates the modern Religious Right. And that was the beginning of the end of my involvement in it. Moralism is evil because its fruits are evil. When you believe that the immoral people around you are threatening your secure life and the material things you covet of this world, you begin to lose your love for them, seeing them as your enemy. That’s so wrong.

So, imagine that we are the few survivors after our ship at sea has gone down. We are in the lifeboat with lots of room, but the two railers are there too. We see people bobbing up and down in the water, confused and searching for rescue, so we who love people yell to them to save themselves by swimming to the boat. But the railers yell out, “Don't bother. We don’t want you here with us.” I just don’t get what motivates them, but it’s a work of the flesh.

Victory in Jesus

"I just don’t get what motivates them."

The great satisfaction that comes from knowing they are superior to everyone else.

I just give blood.

All I can think of to do watching the video and reading this article from my home in Australia is to pray. It rankles me whenever such monstrous, perverse doctrine is showered upon people. I want to physically break something. But all I can ever do is leave these cares to Jesus, he is the Judge, not me. I hope those moralists don't cause any more harm than they already have. It reminds me of a bumper sticker my friend saw once: "Fight like a real man. Get on your knees and pray." Grace with you all.

Great reminder. Am giving it all to God right now as I am facing 20-years in prison. The spotlight is on me and I need to reflect him. God Bless!