The Christian as Salt

“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 used salt to teach how important Christians are as they live out their lives in the world. Comparing disciples to the familiar commodity, salt, He reminded them to think of the value of salt. Salt (sodium chloride), a common commodity, is used for seasoning, for a preservative, as a cleansing agent and in many compounds for medicinal and other uses.

Growing up on a farm, I saw the uses of salt in more ways than for seasoning the food we ate. My father kept blocks of salt suspended on stable platforms for our farm animals to “lick,” thus assuring that they would become thirsty and go to pure water sources to drink. Salt was a part of keeping the farm animals healthy.

Salt was also valuable as a preservative. Near Thanksgiving time, in my home community, we had what we knew as “Hog Killing Time.” Neighbors would help each other as the cold snaps hit our community to butcher the hogs and begin the process of curing the meat for later use. I recall how my father took salt and carefully rubbed it into the cut hams, shoulders and “middlings” laid out on the curing table in the smokehouse. At the right time, he hung them up to further cure. My father had his own formula for a cure for hams, consisting of a mixture of salt, brown sugar and other ingredients. He was somewhat famous for the “Dyer-cured hams.” He had regular customers from Gainesville and Atlanta year by year who would come for their pork ham when the curing process was completed. Salt had been a vital ingredient in this curing, seasoning, preserving process.

Salt as seasoning adds a distinctive flavor to foods we eat. Many of us who have experienced heart difficulties are familiar with the limitation of salt to prevent further damage to diseased arteries. We learn to use less-potent forms of salt to add flavoring to food. We are familiar, too, with other uses of salt as a cleansing agent and as a medicine. We use salt water to gargle for a sore throat to minimize soreness and get at the germs that cause infections. All of the uses for salt—to add flavor, to preserve, to cleanse, to permeate and heal—are characteristic of a Christian’s influence in society. Jesus said, “you are like salt in the earth.” The Message Bible by Eugene H. Peterson gives this translation to Matthew 5:13: “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” Actually, in Jesus’s day, we are told that “un-salty” salt was used as a paving agent on the streets and roads; hence the use to be “trampled under people’s feet.”

In my historical research and writing, I came across Civil War letters from citizens in Fannin County , Georgia, addressed to Governor Joseph Emerson Brown begging for shipments of salt so cattle would have their licks and so people could preserve food. It was an urgent appeal. Consider Jesus’ statement to His disciples to be urgent: “You art the salt of the earth!” What an appeal and what a command to us! Christians must know that they have a flavor given to them by the Lord Christ, different from the world, and making a definite difference in society. Praise be to God! - Ethelene Dyer Jones 09.18.2016