Being salt

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

BEING SALT

Matt 5:14

13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

NIV

What does it mean to be the salt of the earth? Perhaps it would be good to investigate just what salt is in order to understand the meaning the Lord intended here for us to learn. We cannot make use of the truth here using the salt we buy in the stores in this country. What we need to see is that in the Middle East countries there is a type of salt that is more natural in a sense. Salt is used for the preservation of food. In fact the Israelites were instructed to salt the grain offerings.

Lev 2:13

13 Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.

NIV

Salt is actually the opposite of leaven. Leaven will spread and spoil the whole of the grain while salt will preserve it. The idea is that we, being the salt of the earth, should be who preserves this earth from destruction. There is two ways in which we could interpret this destruction. The first and likely not the meaning the Lord intends is to be good stewards of the land. To be an environmentalist, working diligently in an effort to keep other men from polluting the air and water. But this has no merit as a life lesson of being the salt of the earth. For one we know that God created this earth in its form and function with all knowledge of the advancement mankind would make and how they would both use the resources he instilled within the earth and the method in which they would give off certain emissions. He created this earth not only to be complete in resources for as long as the earth remains, but to also be its own filter, cleansing itself throughout the ages. Mankind can neither create nor destroy that which God has done. If we could, then we would then be able to consider ourselves greater then God. But this salt that preserves has to do with the spiritual rather than the material. We should be the ones keeping mankind from living in the darkness. We preserve the holiness of God to the world. We keep the word of God present and alive for others to find. But there is also the meaning in the sense that salt keeps us from putrefaction, which is the process of decay, the rotting of the body. There is references to the covenant of salt with the Lord. Jesus is the salt which keeps us from putrefaction. We in turn should keep the earth, which is the rest of mankind from that same process. That is we should have the influence of salt upon other people rather than allowing them to influence our thinking and behavior. This is what the Lord means about losing our saltiness. The salt of the Middle East had great value, it was used for trade, as it did in fact preserve foods, meat and other organic material from the process of decay. However, this type of salt they used, and still have available today, when exposed to the dirt of the earth or even sunlight loses its properties and when it does is ground up and thrown onto paths such like we would use gravel. The research of our historians gives us this information and so we can see just what the truth the Lord was teaching. The Jews would be more than aware of how salt lost its saltiness. It would do so by being contaminated by the dirt of the earth. We can see the same spiritual ramifications in our lives. We can lose our saltiness by being contaminated by the ways of the world. If we are going to be the salt of the earth than we must maintain our purity of thought and behaviors. We cannot allow the thinking of this world to infiltrate our commitment to the ways of God. If we begin to accept certain concepts of the world, we have started the process of decay. There is no compromise between the light and the dark. What commonality is there between a believer and a non-believer? What does righteousness have in common with unrighteousness? And yet as we allow the idea of this world to infiltrate our lives, even the way we conduct our church services, our worship, we have lost some of that saltiness. This is the meaning of being in the world but not of the world. We must be used as the salt, to preserve, but not to be mingled with, infected with the world. Certainly as we allow the world to influence our thinking and compromise our beliefs, they will most certainly trample all over us.