Has Your Salt Gone Flat?

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 

(Matthew 5:13 NIV)

Salt.  We all need it; some of us even crave it.  Refined salt, with it contents of sodium chloride, is essential for life, not only for humans and animals but for plants as well.  There are also a number of non-dietary uses for salt.  It can heal, preserve, and add flavor to our food.

According to Wikipedia, only about 6% of the salt that is harvested goes into food, while of the remaining, 12% is used for water conditioning purposes, 8% goes to de-ice highways and other roadways, and another 6% is used in agriculture.  The remaining 68% is utilized for manufacturing and industrial purposes.

Salt is a natural mineral rather than a manufactured substance.  A product of God’s nature.  It primarily grows on rocks in places like Judea and Palestine, though some types of salt are found in marshy areas which become arid during dry seasons.

Jesus’ reference to salt would have been familiar to His followers.  It may have brought to their minds a passage in the Levitical commands:

Every offering of your grain you shall season with salt; 

you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God 

to be lacking from your grain offering. 

 With all your offerings you shall offer salt 

(Leviticus 2:13).

The people listening to Jesus that day would also have understood what He meant by salt losing its savor.  When contaminated by dirt, air, sun or water, salt ceases being salty, and must be removed in order to avoid burning the surrounding vegetation.

It quite literally is good for nothing but to be swept up and thrown into the street where it can do no harm.  Interestingly, the only raw salt that is suitable for harvest is that which stays connected to the rock.

Acquainted with the importance of rock to salt, Jesus’ listeners may have thought back to another passage:

No one is holy like the Lord, for there is none besides You, 

nor is that any rock like our God 

(Samuel 2:2)

On another occasion, Jesus inferred that He is the rock on which a wise person builds his life, against which negative elements cannot prevail:

Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them,

 I will liken him to a wise man who built his house

 on the rock and the rain descended, the floods came, 

and the winds blew and beat on that house;

and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock

(Matthew 7:24-25)

So it is that we can glean at least two truths from Jesus’ lesson on salt:

1). Salt here represents believers, God’s children.  Those who have lost their savor are Christians whose lives have become so contaminated by worldly elements that they have lost their usefulness to God.  Even so, though ineffective witnesses, they are still salt, still His children.  The good news is that, unlike the mineral, God in His mercy and grace will restore their usefulness if they turn to Him in repentant prayer:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 

(1 John 1:9)

2).  Jesus is the Rock, the foundation on which the Christian life must be built.  Only continued association with Him through prayer, Bible study, and worship, will keep us from the elements by which Satan seeks to destroy our witness; our ability to be used in service to God:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God

(Romans 12:1-2)

                                                You are my Rock, my Lord, my All,
                                                 as I walk through the days of my life.
                                                You have the strength that I do not have,
                                                and freedom from fears and strife.
                                                Help me to cling to Your loving hand,
                                                through storms and calmness alike;
                                                Sheltered, protected each step of the way,
                                                from Satan’s power to strike.