This section consists of two parts: (1) a brief discourse on the cost of following Jesus (vv. 25–33) and (2) the saying on worthless salt (vv. 34–35). Part of the section on counting the cost has to do with the king who plans for war (vv. 31–32), which may provide a link with the preceding Parable of the Great Banquet (vv. 15–24), since Deuteronomy 20 apparently has conceptual and verbal parallels to these Lucan passages (so Evans, pp. 47–48; see commentary on 14:15–24 above). The main point of the section is that the would-be follower of Jesus had better count the cost carefully and, according to v. 33, be willing to give up everything.

As with most of Luke 14 already considered, this section is for the most part unique to Luke. Only a few verses are found in Matthew and so presumably we…