Matt 5:13
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”
“῾Υμεῖς ἐστε τὸ ἅλας τῆς γῆς· ἐὰν δὲ τὸ ἅλας μωρανθῇ, ἐν τίνι ἁλισθήσεται; εἰς οὐδὲν ἰσχύει ἔτι εἰ μὴ βληθῆναι ἔξω καὶ καταπατεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων.”
“Humeis este to halas tes ges; ean de to halas moranthe, en tini alisethesetai? eis ouden ischuei eti ei me blethen exo katapateisthai hupo twn anthropon”
In this section of Matthew, Jesus uses two metaphors to describe his followers, salt and light. Today we will be looking at salt.
It is important not to miss the key principle in the metaphor Jesus uses here. Members of the body of Christ must impact society around them, as salt impacts the food (as well as other things) around it. The people of God must impact society because we are different from the people of the world. Being different does not mean being weird or bizarre, but rather: distinct.
The question therefore is: In what way must we be distinct?
To answer this question we will look at some of the properties of salt.
· Salt is valuable (because of what it can do)
Until fairly recently salt was very important, especially in the ancient world. Before refrigeration was a possibility people used salt to preserve food. Salt was so important that wars were fought over it. The economies of entire kingdoms were based on it!
In fact, our English word “Salary” comes from the Latin word “salarium”. Roman soldiers were paid salarium, which was money paid specifically to buy salt. Salarium was also sometimes in the form of salt. Eventually salt became synonymous with wages. Some believe that this is why the saying that a person is “not worth their salt” means the person did not give value for money.
Each of us must be of value to God. God gave each of us talents and gifts. He did not give it to us just for fun, God gave us talents and gifts because we are going to need them in order to accomplish His will
Salt was valuable because of the things it could be used for. God has a will for each of us. God has a purpose and use for each one of us. If we use the talents and gifts given to us we become valuable to God, just as salt is valuable to us.
· Salt stops corruption and decay
The main reason why salt was so extremely valuable was due to its ability to preserve food.
We must focus on stopping all forms of corruption within our lives. We can look at the following as an example:
Our speech must not be corrupt. We must think before we speak. A thoughtless word of criticism, rude remarks, lies, negative speaking and profanity (to mention a few examples) are all forms of corruptive speech. This type of speech does not edify anyone, rather, it corrupts and destroys. We must keep in mind how our speech influences our testimony. If on Saturday we use profanity but on Sunday we grace our lips with nothing but righteous utterances we are fooling ourselves. People who notice this will not listen to your testimony and the purpose God may have had for you in that situation is lost.
This counts for every aspect of our lives. Speech, actions and beliefs. We must continuously focus on fighting corruption.
We must also influence the world around us in a similar fashion. People around us should be ashamed if they use profanity, they should feel so convicted that they would not even dare to tell a lie when a Christian is in the room. People must be so positively influenced by Christians that fights should stop when we enter a room; people should put away alcohol long before we even get there!
The impact of “salty” Christians has affected entire countries. Consider impact of the First Great Awakening (revival) on England at a time when the rest of Europe was embroiled in political upheavals. Even secular writers acknowledge that it was because of the impact of Christians such as John Wesley and George Whitefield that England was spared the effects of the bloody revolution that swept through France in the late 1700's. “Salty” believers really do prevent corruption and decay!
· Salt gives flavour
There are two aspects of salt that go hand in hand. Salt stops corruption and adds flavour. There are many things that can preserve food, however, some will make the food so unsavory that it might as well have rotted.
We must be careful when stopping corruption that we do not lose our flavour. People who are too strict often display a life that no one wants to live. We all know that Christianity is not always easy and people go through very difficult times, especially in countries where Christians are prosecuted due to their faith. However, Christianity is not some severe punishment that we have to plow through suffering every day!
There are awesome things about being a Christian! Seeing God move amongst the people and experiencing His presence. Experiencing God’s love and care when He delivers us from a situation or when He blesses us with His mercy. Knowing the feeling that no matter what happens, God is in control and He will take care of us, so there is no need to fear anything. The list can go on forever…
We must also be able to portray this to the unsaved world. People should look at Christians and think ‘that is what I want’ or ‘I want to be like that!’ and ‘Now that person serves a God worthy of worship!’…
I am not saying that we should lie by saying that Christianity is all slow-motion in the corn fields; I am only saying that we have to display the good side of Christianity as well.
· Salt is easily pulverized
No one is perfect and God is always busy perfecting us. We must seek to be changed by God so that we can fulfill His will and purpose for our lives. Most of the time, we must be broken down before we can be rebuilt into the new person God wants us to be. We can be rebellious and try to avoid this, or we can be like salt and allow God to form us into something new, which enables us to do God’s will.
Salt represents a covenant:
Aristotle wrote that lasting alliances between kingdoms were often made by eating bread and salt, or sometimes only salt.
Salt represents a covenant, even in modern times. In the Arab world, if a man offers another man salt (in the sense of sharing a meal), the guest is considered to be under his protection and care. They could be worst enemies, but as long as the salt covenant remains the one will be under the protection of the other.
God also commanded that the Israelites had to put salt on every meat sacrifice that they offer (Lev 2:13). Without salt, their sacrifice was unacceptable.
Tasteless salt:
This verse also tells us that if the salt loses its flavour it must be destroyed.
Here we come to a very important point… Salt can lose its flavour…
This verse firmly rejects the belief of “Once saved – always saved”. Salt can lose its flavour, just as believers can fall away and become useless to the Lord. Once we are saved we give our lives over to God. This means that we are now going to do what He asks of us. As long as we position ourselves in such a way that this can be accomplished, we will remain valuable salt.
We are saved through faith, however, we remain saved through works – This is merely a continuation of our faith. Our faith produces good works for God. If we do not display “good works”, then it speaks volumes about our faith. Good works is the outward display of our faith (however, this is a message for another week…).
The point is that we must continue to be useful to the Lord. We must continue to do His will and influence the world around us. If we don’t do this we are useless to the Lord and is good for nothing except destruction.
So the question is:
What have you done today (or what are you planning to do today), that will influence the world around you? How will you be the salt of the earth?
