Most Christians know the story of the teacher of the law who asked Jesus, “Who is my Neighbor?”  This was the question that prompted Jesus to reply with the Parable of the Good Samaritan – showing that even our enemies are neighbors when it comes to the law of God.

But what if the teacher had asked the question in a slightly different way, saying, “Who is my Friend?”  Could the answer to that question also impact our understanding of the Way of Christianity?  We don’t have any indication in the New Testament of that question being asked of Jesus, but we do have Jesus’ answer to it, nevertheless.

In his Gospel, Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas Iscariot, the disciple turned traitor, had led a group of soldiers and other armed men to where he knew Christ would be in order to betray him for a cash reward.  As Judas approached Jesus in the dark of night and greeted him with a kiss in order to identify him to those who were to arrest him, Matthew records Jesus’ surprising  words:  “ ‘Do what you came for, friend.’ Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him” (Matthew 26:50).

Think about this. Jesus was not one to soften the truth. He was the one who called the Pharisees “whitened sepulchers” and a “brood of vipers” – to their faces.  But at the very moment of his betrayal , Jesus did not call Judas all the things we probably would have done. He did not call Judas “Traitor!” “Enemy!” “Back-Stabber!” – he did not even call him “False Friend!”  Amazingly, he just called him “friend.”

Now if we want to get technical, the word the Bible uses to record what Jesus called Judas was not philos, the Greek word usually translated “friend” and meaning “dear” in the sense of a close friend.  It uses the word hetairos meaning “friend” in the sense of a comrade, one who is a friend without necessarily having any affectionate relationship.  But he did call Judas by a word that means “friend” in the general sense (Matthew also uses the word in this sense in Matthew 20:13 and Matthew 22:12).

How do we apply his example?   The Old Testament gives us some clues.  Hebrew has a word, merea, which is very similar in meaning to the Greek hetairos – it also means friend in the sense of companion or comrade and it is found in Job’s words: “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty” (Job 6:14). It is the same word that is used to tell us that after Job prayed for his “friends” (the individuals who had been haranguing him), God forgave them (Job 42:10).  

So if righteous Job prayed for the “friends” who mistreated him, and Christ could even call Judas “friend” as he betrayed him, can we learn a lesson from this? When we pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44), do we pray grudgingly, with reservations, or do we pray for them as we would for a friend?  

Luke’s Gospel indicates that the evangelist may have particularly appreciated good food – at least it shows clearly that he noticed and commented on food more than any other Gospel writer!  But Luke does not simply mention food and meals – he draws lessons from them.
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As a frame of reference, we should notice that Luke’s account of the life of Jesus really does have a noticeable focus on food. For example, while Matthew uses the word “eat” 18 times, and John only 15 times, Luke uses the word 33 times. Mark also uses this word quite frequently (25 times), but overall Luke uses a number of eating and food-related words twice as many times as Mark and the other Gospels, so his emphasis on this is clear. Within his Gospel, Luke also – uniquely – describes ten meals in which Jesus participated, and we will look at them all briefly.   Click here to continue reading.

​As Christians we know that the greatest responsibility and opportunity we have in the lives we are given is to love God and our fellow human beings (Matthew 22:37-39). But none of us is perfect in this regard; so how do we grow in love for God and others? 

The apostle John gives us an answer to this important question. In his letters, John talks extensively about love, mentioning the concept no fewer than 34 times, including his well-known summary statements such as “…God is love” (1 John 4:8). But John’s teaching on love is not as general as it might sometimes appear. 

In his first epistle, the apostle talks about an easily overlooked aspect of the two directions or dimensions of love – love of God and love of people – that must both be present in our lives. In doing so, John answers the question of “How do we increase our love for God and man?” by answering a slightly different one: “How do we know if we love God and others?”  He gives us the answer first in terms of whether we truly love God or not.  Notice what he tells us:

“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (1 John 4:20-21).

The proof of our love for God, John says, is that we love others.  In the next chapter of his letter, John repeats this fact:  “... everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him” (1 John 5:1).  But the apostle then reverses the direction of this understanding:
“This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2-3).

The proof of our love for others, John tells us here, is that we love God and are obedient to him. Just as it is not possible to truly love God without loving his children (1 John 5:1), it is also impossible to truly love God’s children without loving him (1 John 5:2). Together, these verses show the two directions that love must work in.  In the first case, our love and obedience to God involves – and is proved by – our love of our brothers and sisters. In the second case, we are told that our love for our brothers and sisters is based on – and proved by – our love and obedience to God.

Simple as it may sound, this two-way definition can be tremendously helpful to us as Christians.  We can see what John says as both admonition and encouragement.  First, there is clear admonition for all of us in the understanding that we cannot claim to love God if we cannot bring ourselves to love all people, and conversely, that we cannot pretend we truly love people if we do not deeply love God.  Love of one without love of the other is not genuine love.

But the encouraging side of this equation relates to our original question:  “How can we grow in love of God and others?”  What John shows us indicates we can increase our love of God by loving people more, and if we want to increase our love of others, we can do that through actively developing our love of God.  It may seem counterintuitive, but it is a truth that solidly underlies much of what John tells us.

Why is this? The reason is that unless God is the center of our life – what we love above all else –  we will never  truly love others as much as ourselves, because without God at the center of our lives, we will love ourselves above all else – we will primarily be “lovers of ourselves” (2 Timothy 3:2).  Conversely, if we do not love others as much as ourselves, we are not fulfilling God’s command and our love of him will always be limited.

What John shows us is that as we grow in our love for God, our love for others will naturally increase at the same time.  The closer we grow to God, the more he changes the way we think about ourselves – and others – and the more we begin to love others.  As we grow to love the children of God more, it is a direct reaction that we begin to be less self-centered and our love for God naturally increases as a result.

John’s words on the two directions of love may indeed seem counterintuitive at first, yet they are profoundly true in showing us how we can know and grow our love for God and others.

​“Everyone will be salted with fire.  Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other” (Mark 9:49-50).



​The passage found in Mark 9 regarding Christ’s words about salt is usually explained or expounded by simple reference to the fact that biblically salt was a symbol of preservation or purity, but if we look closely, these verses actually vary the significance of salt by stressing different meanings.

In Mark 9:49 the words “Everyone will be salted with fire” clearly refers to purification, but when we move to verse 50a the statement “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?” just as clearly refers to the disciple’s commission to serve as “salt” of this world (Matthew 5:13) – a function of making the world palatable to God.

But in the final statement using salt as a symbol: “Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other” (Mark 9:50b), neither of these previous meanings fits the saying. “Have salt among yourselves” does not make sense in terms of purification or making the world palatable – how would either meaning relate to being at peace with one another?

It is most likely that in the latter part of verse 50 Jesus’ comment refers to the fact that in ancient Judea and in the wider ancient Near East, salt was used extensively in making covenants and treaties between individuals or groups.  We see this in biblical verses such as:

Numbers 8:19:  “Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present to the Lord I give to you and your sons and daughters as your perpetual share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord for both you and your offspring.”

2 Chronicles 13:5:  “Don’t you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?”
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Leviticus 2:13: “Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.” This last verse is usually said to be based on the purificatory aspect of salt, but the text says specifically the salt is the “salt of the covenant.” 

To “eat salt together” meant to make peace and enter into a covenant – or what we call today a “peace treaty” with someone. In Acts 1:4, where Jesus met with the disciples after his resurrection, most translations say he was “with” the disciples, but the Greek is literally “being together salted” – perhaps especially significant after the disciples had only recently deserted and disowned him.

Now, going back to Mark 9:50, the context of Jesus’ words in that verse is clear.  The disciples were arguing about who among them would be the greatest, and Jesus had to rebuke them for this attitude (Mark 9:33-35). But his words recorded at the end of the chapter spoke to the lack of peace between the disciples caused by this – and doubtless other – arguments.  In telling the disciples to “have salt among yourselves and be at peace with each other” (vs. 50), Jesus was probably urging them to use the symbolic salt of covenant relationship – specifically of a covenant of peace – and thus to be at peace with one another.

We do not always know when the writers of the Gospels bring together related sayings that may have been spoken at different times, but which share a common theme.  That could be the case in Mark 9 where we see different uses of the symbolism of salt, but it is also possible that Jesus simply varied the meanings of the symbol as he occasionally did in other instances.  In either case, the reference to having “salt among yourselves” seems to be clearly related to the role of salt in covenants and treaties of peace.