Knowing The Word in Luke 14:25-35, The Cost of Discipleship and Salt

Discipleship means giving one’s first loyalty to Jesus, even above family. Cross-bearing, or dying to oneself, is the heart of discipleship. Jesus does not want followers who rush into discipleship without thinking about what is involved. That is why Jesus spent time with Peter, Andrew, James, and John before they walked away from their fishing business to become his first disciples. Using salt as a metaphor, Jesus tells us there is an incisive quality about discipleship. If anyone lacks it, that person is useless to Jesus and his mission.

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

34 “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Prayer: God, make me single and sincere; take away all that is not true, all that hinders thy work in me; for only so shall I serve thee.

A Saint Francis Prayer Book