You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.
Matthew 5:13
In today’s verse, Jesus tells His followers that “You (they) are the salt of the earth.” The value of salt in the ancient world is hard for us to estimate. In the ancient world, salt had at least three major functions. It was a purifying agent, it was a preservative, and it provided taste. The Mosaic Law required that all offerings presented by the Israelites contain salt. In Leviticus 2:13, we read, “You shall season all your cereal offerings with salt; you shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your cereal offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.” In other words, all the offerings made to God were supposed to be purified.
If salt sits on a shelf for too long, it loses its flavor. It is of no use. Salt also can be used in a destructive manner. At the end of the Civil War, General William Sherman marched through Georgia sowing fields with salt so that they wouldn’t produce any crops.
Immediately following His words about persecution in the Beatitudes, Jesus calls on His followers to respond to the persecuting world in ways that are purifying, preserving and tasteful. Our calling is to make the world a better place. In Colossians 4:6, St. Paul writes, Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.
Most of us use salt to season food, but we don’t often think of ourselves as seasoning, or salt, for the world. Let’s explore the three uses of salt—purifying, preserving, and providing taste—and how we can apply each to the world as Christians.
I remember from high school, how we used to do experiments on purifying water, which included running dirty water through a filter, so the filter could catch large impurities. There is a lot of dirty-ness in the world, and each of us contributes to that when we sin. This is why we need constant filtering to purify ourselves—this comes through prayer, fasting, confession, and overall watchfulness and discipline, to watch what comes out of our mouths, to control what goes into our thoughts, what we read, what we take in. Because what we take in affects what we put out, what we say, what we do. So we want to think of ourselves as a filter and contribute things that are pure to the world.
Salt is a preservative. Our goal as Christians is to spread the word of God. We can’t do that unless we first understand it. We must first grow and preserve faith within our own souls, and then go out and grow the faith in others. Helping our children grow in faith is essential because it “preserves” the faith for the generations to come. We have faith because we received it from those who came before us. Those who came before us preserved and shared the faith with us—either directly (like our parents, Sunday school teachers, etc.) or indirectly (people who are coming to the faith as adults who didn’t grow up in a Christian household are finding faith because others have preserved it and they have discovered it through other Christians, the internet, etc.) We each play a role in preserving and spreading the faith—that is, after all, the Great Commission that Christ gave us, to go and make disciples of all nations and teach them what He taught us. (Matthew 28:19-20)
And finally, salt provides taste. It makes food more rich, more complex. Christianity should provide some depth for the world. Without Christianity, life becomes all about us, and “you only live once.” Christianity is like as preparation for greater life. We don’t only live once. We live forever. And if we want to live forever in the Kingdom of God, we have to discover, accept, believe and live out the Christian faith. We have to be salt in the world.
Points to ponder: What specific things do you, or can you, do that purify the world? What are you, or can you, do to preserve the faith for the next generation? How do you add Christian “taste” to the world?
0 Comments