The "salty" Christian

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TODAY’S SPECIAL: Matthew 5:13-20

TO CHEW ON: “‘You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.’” Matthew 5:13


Jesus’ use of salt as a metaphor for those who believe in Him is clever. For salt (NaCl - sodium chloride) is surprisingly versatile.

We may think of it primarily for how it’s used as a seasoning in food. That seems to be the comparison Jesus is making here because He refers to how it might lose its flavor. In food, just a little salt is all that’s needed to enhance other flavors and bring about a balance pleasing to the palate.

Salt can be used as a preservative of food and other things. We have probably tapped into its germ-killing qualities when we gargle with salt water to treat a sore throat.

However, salt has many more uses. The Maldon Salt Company website claims that as a society we use salt in more than 14,000 different ways. Their graph shows that its greatest use is in industrial chemicals (where it’s used to make plastic, paper, rubber, fertilzer, bleach, detergent, dyes and more), followed by water conditioning, highway de-icing, food, and agriculture. (During a recent bout of cold weather we experienced the usefulness of salt, especially that which was “trampled underfoot.”)

Some additional facts about salt:

• Salt can remove some stains.

• Salt removes traces of water from purified aviation fuel.

• Every cell in the body contains salt.

• Sodium is key in the operation of all signals within, as well as to and from the brain.

All that to say when Jesus compared believers to salt, He was implying a lot! Here are some parallels I’d suggest:

• Just as a little salt accomplishes much, so though we as Christians may be few in number, our presence can have a seasoning and purifying effect on any society we inhabit.

• Salt is used for many purposes and processes. Similarly Christians (bearers of the salt) can be found in a multitude of places in many careers doing many jobs.

• Just as salt is found in every body  cell and needed for brain function, so the saltiness of the gospel in us unites us as Christians and helps us work together as the body of Christ.

• Salt can be an agent of safety and we can be that too. As a pastor in my church prayed recently, “Help us Christians be like the salt on the icy sidewalk, keeping people from slipping and falling.”

PRAYER: Dear Jesus, please help me to be a salty Christian. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Speech seasoned with salt

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Colossians 4:2-18

TO CHEW ON: "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one." Colossians 4:6

When Paul told his readers that their speech was to be "seasoned with salt" I don't think he was instructing them to vent rage or sprinkle their conversation with coarse or racy words. So what does it mean to season one's speech with salt (metaphorically, of course)?

We know salt has two main uses:

• Seasoning: As a seasoning agent, just a little is usually enough. Salt enhances other flavours, it doesn't seek to be the star of the food. Too much salt in a dish and we can't eat it.

• Preservative: When we don't have the means to can or freeze, meat or fish is preserved with salt. Apparently salt doesn't burn either.

Salt in the Bible:

• Salt was part of the OT sacrifices and symbolic of Yahweh's covenant with Israel: "And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt."

What did this salt symbolize? Different commenters speak of it in slightly different ways:

• Reformation Study Bible: "Probably because it is indestructible by fire, salt symbolizes the enduring covenant between God and Israel" (accessed through Study Tools on biblegateway.com).

• Asbury Bible Commentary: "Salt of the covenant: emphasizes the binding character of God's covenant with His people" (accessed through Study Tools on biblegateway.com).

• Jesus referred to that salty sacrifice and told the disciples they needed salt in themselves:  “'For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another'” Mark 9:49,50.

• And here Paul tells his readers to season their speech with salt - Colossians 4:6

Matthew Henry's commentary ties these passages together.

"Among the ancients salt was a symbol of friendship. The salt for the sacrifice was not brought by the offerers, but was provided at the public charge, as the wood was, Ezra 7:20-22. And there was a chamber in the court of the temple called the chamber of salt, in which they laid it up. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? God would hereby intimate to them that their sacrifices in themselves were unsavoury.

"The saints, who are living sacrifices to God, must have salt in themselves, for every sacrifice must be salted with salt (Mark 9:49, 50), and our speech must be always with grace (Col. 4:6), so must all our religious performances be seasoned with that salt. Christianity is the salt of the earth" - Matthew Henry's Commentary (accessed through Study Tools on biblegateway.com).

Applying this salt metaphor to speech, we might say that for the Christ follower, speech seasoned with the salt:

• Reflects the possibility of a relationship with God (covenant).

• Includes the fact that we are His forever (the binding character of that relationship).

• Communicates that this relationship preserves from judgment (preservative).

• Is seasoning—just a bit is enough; it doesn't need to overpower or dominate all we say. But neither should we leave it out.

PRAYER: Dear Father, Help me to learn how to season my speech with the salt of the above, and deliver what I say with grace. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

A salty life

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Matthew 5:13-20

TO CHEW ON: "'You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.'" Matthew 5:13


Jesus' metaphors of how kingdom citizens penetrate secular society by being salt and light ignite the imagination. Let's take a close look at SALT.

• We know how as a seasoning it enhances flavours.

• We are familiar with its antiseptic properties that make it a preservative and a germ killer. No doubt many of us have  gargled salt water when we're fighting a cold.

An article titled "Over 60 Ways to Use Salt" includes these additional diverse uses of salt, many of which I was not aware.
Salt:

• relieves insect bites.

• removes mineral deposits from glass.

• helps lift stuck food from baking dishes.

• speeds up the cooking time of boiling water.

• stops cut fruit from browning. And on… *

Salt is a pretty useful compound!

About salt, we also know that:

• A little goes a long way. One of the easiest ways to spoil the edibility of food is to over salt it.

• It's invisible. The way salt dissolves in liquids means that its presence is difficult to detect except by taste. So it can easily penetrate all kinds of places without us even knowing it.

• Once salt is in something, it's virtually impossible to remove it.

How might these properties of salt correlate to the influence of our lives in the world around us?

* By our lives and speech we can be an antiseptic against evil and a preservative of God's ways—the righteous principles of holy living found in the Bible.

* The cleansing properties of salt may be represented by our attitudes of grace, compassion, and forgiveness.

* We need to trust the integrity of the small pinch of salt each one of us is in our surroundings. We may feel that our influence is hardly noticeable, but like a few grains of salt perk up a batch of bread or a pot of porridge, so our small but salty influence makes a difference.

* We can penetrate, practically invisibly, into many places. As part of our communities, we can be that salty presence wherever we are, from our homes to places of political office, in person to impersonally as we spread our words  through the media and online. And let them try and flush us away. It won't work. Like taking the salt out of a pot of soup, it will be virtually impossible!

PRAYER: Dear God, help me to be that penetrating influence for good in my community that salt is in our natural world. Amen.

*Read entire article "Over 60 Ways to Use Salt"

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.