Stand Out and Be Useful like Salt

Salt, sodium chloride, is a mineral substance quite common in the world, especially in much of the world’s ocean water. Salt is processed and used in many ways. The majority of salt sold today is for industrial use like in the making of soaps and detergents. Salt is also the most popular food seasoning or flavor enhancer. And before canning and artificial refrigeration came along in human history, salt provided the best-known food preservative, especially for meat. Salt is used for melting ice and healing wounds.

Sodium is necessary in human life. Our bodies need a certain amount of sodium (found in salt). It is involved in regulating the water content (fluid balance) of the body among other things. Too much or too little salt in the diet can lead to several types of health problems, though.

Salt is referenced several times in the Holy Bible. For example, salt was included in various food offerings as part of the Hebrew worship. Salt was used to ratify covenants. Why? The preservative quality of salt represents the fidelity or loyalty intended in keeping the covenant. Salt was used to season food. The fisherman during Bible times would preserve their catch by salting, drying, smoking, or storing it in salt water. Salt was a metaphor to speak of durability. And Jesus Christ described His disciple followers as ‘the salt of the earth.’

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

Matthew 5:13 (ESV)

Jesus Christ was urging His followers to be effective Christians just as salty salt is effective in its uses. This especially refers to the Christian’s influence upon nonbelievers (but their spiritually salty influence would help worldly believers as well) because sin has caused a decaying effect in this world, especially separating people from their perfect Creator God. God’s redemption plan for unredeemed sinners is to offer individuals reconciliation to Himself by grace through faith based on the atoning work of the eternal Son of God on the cross for our sins and His resurrection. When individuals trust in Jesus Christ by faith as their Savior and Lord, they are to follow God’s call on their lives to truly live as Christians influencing others toward Christ and Christ-likeness.

What does this have to do with salt? Well, salt adds flavor and preserves. Life without Christ is bland and empty and insipid and leads to greater sin and decay.

Salt is essentially different from the medium in which it is placed. Christians are to live differently than non-believers in the sense that they are to be obvious Christ-followers in what who they are, what they engage in and abstain from. Here’s an example; Paul exhorted believers in Col. 4:6 to speak with a wholesome language seasoned with salt. Christians should stand out morally like salt stands out when you pour it on your French Fries and eat those tasty taters. Mmmn, yummy! And if you like them with ketchup, this condiment is usually loaded with sodium as well.

Christ stood out morally and spiritually everywhere He went and so should His followers. I believe the whole point of Matt. 5:13 (and 14-16 about being the light of the world in Christ) is for true Christians to stand out as and to live like true Christians in a decaying world. When this happens, they act like a preserving salt against spiritual decay in society and they add God-honoring savor and value to this world that desperately needs more God-honoring influence.

We must be careful to keep being salty for Christ, as we read the following translation: TMSG ..If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness..If salt loses its saltiness, its salty flavor and preserving quality, then it has lost its strength. It is no longer a useful salt, but more like sand, so throw it down and people can walk on it. An unsavory Christian, void of spiritual influence upon non-believers, is a sad testimony of ineffectiveness for God’s kingdom purposes.

The Scots translate “savour” (taste) by the more expressive word tang. I like their word much better. “If the salt has lost its tang.” The problem today is that most church members have not only lost their tang as salt, but as pepper they have lost their pep also. We have very few salt and pepper Christians in our day. Now salt doesn’t keep fermentation and that type of thing from taking place, but it will arrest it. You and I ought to be the salt in the earth and have an influence for good in the world (McGee, J. V. (1991). Vol. 34: Thru the Bible commentary: The Gospels (Matthew 1-13) (electronic ed.) (77). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.)

The great hope for sinners today is Jesus Christ who loves to work through Christ followers who are truly living as salty Christians, devoted Christ followers, among nonbelievers.

For the Christ-followers reading this, how are we doing at standing out as the salt of the earth? With influencing nonbelievers with our Christ-like presence, behavior, attitude, and words? Is our decision making consistently God-honoring? Are we aligning our lives day to day with what’s right in the eyes of God or with what feels good or is popular in our culture? Are we taking the high-road in Christ or are we compromising toward worldliness and the works of the flesh?

Let’s prayerfully and obediently be more like Jesus Christ Himself and provide God-honoring influence wherever we are and upon everyone we come in contact with. Jesus Christ has declared that His followers are the salt of the earth so let’s stand out and be useful like salt! What are your thoughts on Matthew 5:13 and what’s written here?

Mike