Mark 9:50

Jesus continued to use salt as a figure for testing. He said that tests from God, as salt on food, are good for us. Salt preserves food, prevents decay, and enhances flavor. The trials that God allows people to experience should have similar beneficial effects on them (cf. James 1:2-4). However if salt becomes bland, it will not achieve its desired results (cf. Matthew 5:13). Likewise if God’s trials lose their bite-if we become insensible and unresponsive to the self-discipline that He is seeking to teach us, by hardening our hearts-these trials can cease to benefit us. Therefore we must have salt in ourselves, namely, accept the trials that God sends us that demand self-discipline rather than rejecting them. Furthermore we must live peacefully with one another rather than becoming sectarian (Mark 9:38) or self-seeking (Mark 9:34).

This command concludes this section of instruction that deals with the enemies of disciple fidelity (Mark 9:33-50).