The salt must be savory or else it is of no use to the world (Matt. 5:13). And the light from the church is anchored to a lampstand within the churches (Rev. 1:20). The internal doctrinal and moral ordering of the church is a matter of mission. Without it, the presence of Christ is gone, the lampstand removed (Rev. 2:5), and with it the light that shines out into the world. A church that loses its distinctiveness is a church that has nothing distinctive with which to engage the culture.
