Salt

"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 5v13

‘You are the salt of the earth’ Jesus said. ‘But if salt loses its flavour it is worthless.’

Salt is one of those things that has a huge impact on the world. Wars have been fought over salt. It is the most basic of seasonings, but in days past it was vital as a preservative as well. People have been paid in salt. Our English word ‘salary’ even comes from the same Latin word as ‘salt.’

When Jesus called us the salt of the earth He was stressing our importance to the world. We are to be the seasoning and preserving presence that gives the world hope. One of our tasks is to simply ‘shake the salt’ of the gospel as we meet and deal with people and handle the various situations that we deal with.

But what happens when salt loses its saltiness? First of all, can that even happen? The salt that we use on our tables doesn’t ever lose its saltiness. Does that mean that Jesus’ illustration is flawed?

Well, the matter is pretty simple. In Jesus day when people thought about salt they did not think about the pure refined NaCl that we see on our tables. The salt they thought about would have been more like what we call ‘halite’ or ‘rock salt.’ It is not pure salt, but is still combined with various minerals. That’s why we don’t use rock salt as a table seasoning. The problem with rock salt is that through weathering and washing away the NaCl can be washed out leaving only the minerals that the sodium clung to. When that happened the ‘salt’ was worthless and no better than the dirt under people’s feet.

Jesus is telling us here that if we are not doing our job and when we have lost our saltiness we are spinning our wheels and wasting our time. We are like that rock salt with the NaCl washed out and is now just a bunch of dust.

It is important that we remember our role as the salt of the earth. It is vital that we don’t lose our saltiness and lose our effectiveness for Him.

Let’s go out and shake the salt today!