Tempted and Tried

by Perry Hall

"For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another" (Mark 9:49-50).

"Salted with fire" (Mark 9:49) is a notoriously hard saying of Jesus. Context can help. Before this difficult text (Mark 9:42-50), there is a scene whose imagery lends the metaphors of fire and water. A demon-possessed son is being tossed into the water and fire (Mark 9:22). The father asks Jesus to have compassion for his son. Compassion will be exhibited by Jesus destroying that which is destroying the father's son. Salt is the compassion of peace.

Salted with fire is a sacrificial term (Leviticus 2:13). Sacrifices are holy when given up to God. Here though, we can become our own sacrifice by giving in to our desires. Then, we are simply destroying ourselves and those among us. When we examine our lives, are we sacrificing others or our desires and ourselves?

"Salted with fire" means everyone will destroy something in their lives here and now. For those who are godly, it is through testing and triumphing over temptation. Trials are good when they are endured for the purpose of destroying the evil within ourselves. However, once the situation turns to evil, how can we turn it back again? By giving in, we have turned the testing into temptation and destroyed one another.

We need to have salt among ourselves, meaning preserving the good within us. Here Jesus is switching the metaphor from salted with fire where salt is a verb, to salt as a noun and preserver. The connection between this switch in metaphor is we are to destroy with fire the evil within us, then we can have peace in ourselves and with one another. Notice how this conclusion is the opposite of how this section begins: "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away ..." (Mark 9:42).

Destroy what is in you so that you don't destroy others. Destroy inwardly so you can have peace from compassion with others.