Matthew 5:13 “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 underfoot.
My nearest and dearest has a great craving for salt. The first thing he grabs when he sits down for a meal is the salt pot and scatters it all too liberally (in my opinion) over his food.
He says without enough salt the meal is tasteless.
In Jesus' time on earth, salt was vital as a cleansing preservative, a disinfectant as well as a seasoning.
Nowadays salt is even used to keep roads from freezing in winter.
All these uses have a spiritual analogy.
As followers of Jesus we are to be a cleansing, healing agent to those around us. We are also called to keep hearts from freezing over from a lack of love.
Interestingly enough, in its natural form, without additives, salt doesn’t lose its saltiness or flavour. Consumable salt is a mineral compound consisting of sodium and chloride (NaCI). It is extremely stable and therefore cannot lose its savour or degrade over time, unlike spices.
The reasons salt could indeed lose its flavour in the New Testament times was the fact that sometimes it got mixed with impurities, or it might have absorbed humidity and eventually evaporated and left behind a substance that looked like salt but did not taste like it.
To sum up, salt cannot lose its flavour unless exposed to certain conditions or contains additives.
Is that what Jesus meant about losing our saltiness?
When we let sin fester in our lives, it will infiltrate the pure new life Jesus has given us and cause a slow process of deterioration.
Then we look like believers on the outside, but on the inside we've been degraded with compromise or perhaps tainted with unforgiveness.
Jesus' warning about that is a solemn one: salt like is not fit for purpose.
God forbid that we ever become SINO "salt in name only"- degraded Christians, full of compromise and cold love.
Let's keep our hearts regularly purified with the Precious Blood of Jesus so we can remain salty people and be a catalyst for change with people we meet.
Bring them the good news of Jesus with salt!
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