CHRIST JESUS laid great stress upon the necessity of constantly meeting and overcoming error of every kind. He repeatedly told his followers that they would be tried and tested continually concerning their knowledge and understanding of Truth and their ability to put these into practice. In the last part of the 9th chapter of Mark's Gospel we read that he called his twelve disciples to him and talked to them concerning ambition and strife. During this conversation, in response to a question put to him by one of the disciples, he warned them that every one would be "salted with fire," and that every sacrifice would be salted with salt. He closed this conversation by bidding them to have salt in themselves and to be at peace one with another.
The need for this admonition of Jesus arose from the fact that the disciples had been disputing among themselves as to who should be greatest, and Jesus, discerning their thoughts of strife and contention, rebuked them by declaring that whoever would be first,—that is, whoever was holding thoughts of self, pride, and ambition,—should be last, because, when tried, he would find that these evil thoughts, being without Principle or God, could not protect him in his time of need; hence through his experiences he must learn to begin at the beginning and strive to put out of his consciousness all that was unlike God.
Jesus had previously told his disciples that they were "the salt of the earth," and this because he had revealed to them the truth about God and man's relation to God—even the right way to think and to live. He also reminded them that they must use their understanding in putting out all evil thinking and wrong concepts, and hold in their consciousness only thoughts of purity, honesty, peace, and love, or the salt would lose its saltness,—their power to heal and help humanity be forfeited; hence his words, "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another." If one should make a mistake, even this would not be an excuse for another to hold a thought of hate or malice toward him; for if every one is to be salted with fire, the one who made the mistake surely and certainly must see his mistake sometime, somewhere, and correct it. Jesus did not say that if one is found committing some error another should kindle a fire under him: he simply said, "Have peace one with another," for he knew that the more persistently they held to thoughts of love and peace, the sooner would all error be impersonalized, uncovered, and destroyed.
