“You are the salt of the earth.” Mat 5:13 NIV
Do you feel valuable? Precious? Worthy? If not, read on and see what Jesus says about you.
Typically, when we describe somebody as the “salt of the earth”, we’re saying they are genuine and trustworthy. Level-headed. Nothing phoney about them. They carry a good measure of common sense. You can count on them. These qualities are admirable, but I’d like to suggest Jesus is saying something more.
Here’s a few fun facts about salt before we dive in:
- its official name is sodium chloride
- its chemical compound is NaCI
- our bodies can’t make it, but we can’t live without it
- we’d eventually die if we stopped ingesting it
- our muscles need it to work
- it balances our water and mineral intake.
What is salt used for practically? It’s used to enhance the flavour of food. Most food needs a dash of it to bring out its true flavour. But too much salt and the food is ruined. Imagine a batch of cookies where a cup of salt has been mistaken for a cup of sugar. The cookies may look delicious but the minute we take a bite, yuck, we spit it out. The cookies are ruined.
Salt is used as a preservative especially in the ancient times when there was no refrigeration – food decayed and ended up in the garbage heap. Salt was it! It helped prolong the decay.
In the ancient world salt was rare, which made it valuable – so valuable that Roman soldiers were partially paid their wages with it. It’s hard to imagine salt being rare because it’s so abundant in our kitchens today. One more use for salt in those days was as a disinfectant – cleaning wounds etc. and we probably still use it as a disinfectant today to some degree.
So, in the natural, salt is an enhancer, a disinfectant, a preservative, and long, long ago – a currency.
That’s all fine and dandy, but I want to know what salt means in the spiritual because this is where Jesus is speaking from.
I went digging and soon discovered in the Old Testament that God made a “covenant of salt” with the priests of the Israelites (Nu 18:19) and with King David (2Ch 13:5). His covenant with the priests was they would receive a portion of the holy offering; and His covenant with David was that his throne would rule forever. Why a salt covenant? It’s a covenant meant to endure forever and is divinely sustained through faithfulness and friendship.
I also discovered salt was used in the temple during worship – it was poured over offerings to God (Ezra 6:9) and was a key component in the incense used during worship to God (Ex 30:34 & 35). Therefore, salt had a spiritual quality and became sacred and holy.
In the New Testament, salt stood for “goodness” (Lu 14:34 & 35); “graciousness” (Col 4:6); “peace” (Ma 9:50) and was a metaphor for wisdom among the rabbinic circles in Jesus’ time (Talmud: Tractate Soferim 15:8).
In the final book of the Bible, God gives us a beautiful picture of our prayers to him: “golden bowls brimming full of sweet fragrant incense – which are the prayers of God’s holy lovers.” Rev 5:8 (TPT).
Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 5:13 that “you are the salt of the earth.” He doesn’t say they are like salt or resemble salt or getting to be like salt – He says they “are” salt. That means, in His eyes, they are valuable, precious, genuine, trustworthy, and furthermore, that they are holy and sacred, filled with peace, goodness, grace and wisdom.
He’s saying this of all who follow Him. That’s me and you!
But wait! Salt serves no purpose stored away in the saltshaker. Only when it is sprinkled out of the shaker does its purpose take effect. Has Jesus sprinkled us out like valuable salt into a dark fallen world? I’d say yes.
What if we lose our saltiness? What happens if we become too salty? He asks us to strike a balance by sprinkling just enough salt into our conversations to make people thirsty for God but not too salty (pushy and annoying) so that what we share about Him isn’t spit out. Rejected.
I love that Jesus sees us as “the salt of the earth”. Valuable and precious. Worthy to be sprinkled out of the shaker to make a difference in a chaotic world where division, war and hatred is running rampant, where truth and love don’t seem to matter anymore. We are salt sprinkling out the truth of His good news to a decaying world through our one voice and our consistent acts of kindness, love, and peace to wherever and whomever He calls us.