Link to Student Guide
Lesson 9
Copyright © 2006
David Chadwell & West-Ark Church of Christ
The objective of this lesson: to illustrate the bond between motivation and purpose.
As is commonly the situation, to properly grasp Jesus' profound lessons it is necessary to understand common realities of Jesus' world. Things that are very common place in our American society were not common in Jesus' life circumstances.
Discuss the essential importance of realizing that the world in which Jesus lived was not our world. Discuss the fact that we easily can miss Jesus' basic point many times if we fail to understand that fact.
As an illustration, consider food. There was no refrigeration. That means there were no ice cubes, no chilled glasses, or no cooled tea, water, or colas. To be chilled in spring water was likely as cool as something got!
Discuss all the ways we take for granted our world of freezing and refrigeration. Start with food preservation and go to grocery shopping and air conditioning. Call for a list of things commonly available to us because of freezing and refrigeration that would not be common in Jesus' day.
There were no freezers! Food could not be preserved by freezing! 'Freezer burn' was unknown! One did not come home from a day's work, go to a freezing compartment, put food in a microwave [which also did not exist], and have that food on a table ready to eat in about thirty minutes.
Discuss how much it would affect today's typical routine if all meals had to be prepared from the beginning ingredients and cooked in what people of today would regard to be primitive methods.
Preservation of food [including long term preservation of perishable foods] was limited to salting, drying, or a combination of both. If preservation by those methods did not occur, preservation did no occur! Even our 'old fashioned' methods of canning by pressure cooker did not exist.
Help your class realize that the methods we take for granted today (freezing, refrigeration, canning, drying by modern methods, vacuum packaging, etc.) were not available to them. Perhaps briefly discuss things regarding food and eating that would be in great contrast today.
As an illustration, ask how many people in your class have eaten salt preserved ham or bacon. Ask how many have eaten something made with dried fruit. Have them consider what it would be like to live in a time and place without sugar--the taste of ripe fruit was likely as close as they got to sugar.
Jesus used salt to teach a profound but simple lesson: Do no damage as you serve your purpose. In our text, Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men."
The concept of not doing harm as you seek to do good is a profound concept. Having a good objective does not give us the license to harm others.
Salt used in the right place for the correct, good purpose was and is incredibly powerful. Many with heart or blood pressure problems today must restrict their consumption of salt. For anyone liking the taste of food with salt [which is most people], that is a demanding, difficult adjustment. Most have little awareness of how much salt contributes to the taste of food until we eat food without salt. Salt continues to be powerful!
Help your students realize the power of salt--in every age!
Salt correctly used is also a powerful preserver. Less than 75 years ago in America, family farms used salt as the means of preserving some types of fresh meat.
The power of salt as a preserver is still powerful today. Few things can prevent decay as can sodium chloride.
A principle of taxation [both ancient and modern]: tax things that are (a) high use and (b) commonly necessary. Since salt was such a substance in Jesus' day, it was taxed frequently. Those who made a living by transporting salt were taxed [often at border crossings]. Profit was lost!
Taxes commonly cause a loss in profit. How often are we shocked when we see how much taxes add to a purchase? The best way for taxes to produce sufficient volume of funds to support a government is to tax the needful and extensively used.
Salt [sodium chloride] does not 'spoil.' A box of salt is never thrown away because it spoiled! However, in Jesus' day, those who transported/sold salt lost part of their profit each time it was taxed. Such people often "restored" profit by adding to their salt a cheaper substance that looked like salt. If a load of salt was so diluted by the cheaper substance, that 'salt' sold to the unsuspecting might not have enough sodium chloride in it to preserve. It had no power to preserve, not because the sodium chloride spoiled, but because the sodium chloride was too diluted to be effective.
Emphasize the fact that the problem Jesus discussed was not caused by spoilage but by dilution. Also make the application that God's influence on our lives can become so 'diluted' that we are more harmful to a godly focus than helpful to a godly focus.
Though the "salt" was not powerful enough to preserve, it was powerful enough to destroy. Thus private owners of weak salt had to be careful in disposing of the 'spoiled salt.' Just as the brine water from an ice cream freezer can kill vegetation, so could the 'spoiled salt.' While such salt was useless for 'good' purposes, it was powerful enough to be deadly. Thus it must be disposed in a place where it could do no harm.
The salt was so diluted that it did not taste like salt, yet even a small presence of sodium chloride had the power to cause harm. The diluted salt could cause the owner harm if that diluted salt was disposed of in a place that grew vegetation.
Christians do not exist to be a danger to people, but to serve people. They are God's force for good in this world.
Just as God is committed to good (see Matthew 5:43-48), God's people are committed to good [as God defines good].
Today light is so common and cheap in the American society, we think little about light--until we are in true darkness with no light! In Jesus' day, darkness was everyone's reality after sundown. By our modern world's standards, the light available then was (a) inferior [dim] and (b) expensive.
Discuss how we are so accustomed to light being readily available that we take light in darkness for granted--until circumstances make light unavailable! Discuss our frustration with both dim light and glaring light. Which is the worst--to be too dim or too bright?
Light was used to help people. The objective: place an available light on a pedestal so all in the room could see. The dim light provided an astounding contrast to the darkness. In Jesus' day many cities were on hill tops. After sunset or before sunrise, small lamps' collectively made a city obvious.
Discuss the truth that light is obvious in darkness just by being light. The 'difference' between light and darkness is obvious when light is simply itself. The distinction does not have to be produced 'artificially'.
The intent of light was to be helpful! The intent WAS NOT to hide need from people's need!
In Jesus' time, light commonly existed to be helpful, not harmful.
The follower of Jesus is God's light to this world. The life one lives combined with one's helpfulness to others produces an inescapable, obvious benefit to others. The benefit is produced by the good works of Jesus' disciple.
Christians seek to be helpful to others--kind, considerate, compassionate, merciful--not harmful!
Jesus' disciple does not do good works to advance self. People who do not follow Jesus see the obvious. It is God's influence in the disciple that motives him or her to do good. Thus they praised God, not the disciple. The source of the motivation is praised rather than the conduit of God's good influence. That is fine with Jesus' disciple! The more one follows Jesus to God the Father, the more unselfish one becomes. His or her motives are the motives of an unselfish disciple honoring God Who blesses him or her.
The motivation for the Christian is to honor God. The Christian sees himself or herself as God's servant, not through personal eye glasses of arrogance. If God is allowed to be the primary influence in our lives, God's influence obviously comes from God.
For Thought and Discussion
It is necessary for us to understand the common realities of Jesus' world. [A critical part of establishing context is understanding the circumstances of life in Israel at that time. If we fail to consider the physical circumstances we may make incorrect applications based on a basic misunderstanding of Jesus' point.]
The lesson: Do not damage as you serve your purpose.
It could lose its power by being diluted to the point that there was too little sodium chloride in the mixture.
Christians do not exist to be a danger to people. Christians exist to serve people.
The intent of light in the 1st century was to be helpful. The intent was not to "hide" from people's need.
Jesus' disciple does good works to give glory to God. The objective of good works is to underscore God's goodness, not to advance the person's ambitions.
The person who is not a Christian realizes the good works the Christian does are a result of God's influence in his or her life.
Link to Student Guide
Lesson 9