Pastor’s Corner: “Could You Pass the Salt Please?”
Matthew 5:13 (MSG) – 13 “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
As followers of Jesus I think sometimes we get so used to our familiar Christian vocabulary that we fail to let the significance really sink in. Have you ever used the phrase: “We’re salt and light!”? And yet, do we really think about the implications of this imagery? What does it really mean to be “the salt of the earth”?
Salt was kind of a big deal in the first century. In fact, it was so important and valuable that Roman soldiers sometimes were paid in salt. Hence the expression, “He’s not worth his salt.” Salt can make an impact and a little bit of salt will go a long way. Just think of the basic principles and effects of salt.
One of the simplest things salt does is make people thirsty. Chemically, salt makes us thirsty because our brain sends a signal to drink water to balance sodium levels in the blood. Salt creates thirst. The spiritual picture is that as the salt of the earth (us), our lives are meant to make people thirsty for the good news of Jesus Christ. This world is spiritually dehydrated, and as salt we point the way to the drinking fountain of living water. Does your life make people thirsty for Jesus?
As we know too well in our sodium-filled world, salt makes things taste better. Salt, when used properly, brings out the flavor already present in the food itself. Unlike pepper, which was used in ancient times to mask distasteful rotting and souring in foods such as meat, salt only enhances what’s there. The spiritual picture is that as followers of Jesus, we are called to help bless, enhance and improve the lives of those lost in darkness with the good news of Jesus. It’s important to be gracious with our words and kind to those who are still held in the pepper shaker of darkness (hiding and masking). “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6 NLT). The word translated as “has lost its taste” is moraino. In Greek, this literally means “cause to become nonsense” or “make foolish.” Without the saltiness of Christians and the good news of Jesus, the world is lost in nonsense and foolishness. Does your life add grace, purpose and improve the lives of the people around you?
Finally, salt is a preservative. By dehydrating food, it preserves it from spoiling. Without refrigeration in the first century, people would preserve meat by rubbing salt into it. Something about packing meat with salt slows down the process of decay, making it easier to store, transport, and save meat without it going rancid right away. An article in the Scientific American explains even more effects of salt: “…these processes not only prevent spoilage of foods, but more importantly serve to inhibit or prevent growth of food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella or Clostridium botulinum when properly applied. Salt both preserves and protects. The spiritual picture is that our lives are meant to stop the rotting process and decay in the world caused by the sickness of sin that causes death. We are here with the good news of salvation and life brought by Jesus Christ! We help preserve life with the Good News of Jesus!
Please pass the salt! You don’t keep the salt all stored up together in the shaker. You scatter it around so it will be in contact with the things that need their flavor changed. And Christians were never meant to be all clustered together in their spiritual salt shaker, just salting each other and soaking up more blessing and more fellowship. The salt’s got to be in direct contact with the meat or the vegetables that need it. So guess what? You and I have to be in meaningful contact with the people who really, really need Jesus. We’re not supposed to be hiding out, playing defense all the time, trying to keep from being contaminated by avoiding the world that Jesus left us here to change!
If we fail to protect and preserve, what good are we? If we fail to cause others to be thirsty and If we fail to enhance the flavor of what’s around us, there’s nothing left for us “except to be thrown out” (so to speak). Flavorless salt is neither good for the soil nor for the manure pile. It’s thrown away. It’s like an espresso without caffeine. In effect Jesus was saying, “What good is a halfhearted Christian? What good is a diluted believer? What good is a decaf disciple?” The answer is not much. Disciples of Jesus must impact their culture. You are the salt of the earth. This means that as a disciple of Jesus, you are valuable. Your life can make difference!
Pray that God would reveal to you whether or not you have been slowly losing your spiritual saltiness. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you preserve important relationships and act as a God-seasoning ingredient in the lives of others.
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton