Building On The RockSample

The Real Salt of the Earth

We sometimes describe good farm folks or humble, hardworking city folks as salt-of-the-earth people, and they may very well be that in one sense. Jesus uses the term somewhat differently. After laying out the values of the kingdom in the Beatitudes, He says to the disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” That’s a pretty tall order no matter how you understand it. Jesus was to leave a dozen apostles and a number of other followers in a small Middle Eastern land with this enormous responsibility.

We don’t know exactly what Jesus meant by this. Some suggest He is referring to salt as a purifying agent, some believe He is thinking of it as a preservative, others focus on the fact that salt enhances flavor, and still others accept several of these as the explanation. No doubt, this is an interesting question, but we must avoid being distracted by it.

We can agree on this: The Lord’s meaning is that His disciples have a unique role in the world and to fulfill that role they are to be spiritually and morally distinct. We don’t need to understand whether the outcome is to be one of these functions of salt—purifying, preserving, or enhancing taste. What we do need to be concerned about is that we do not lose our distinctness, because “if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”

But how are we to avoid losing our saltiness? We have been given, says Peter, “everything we need for a godly life” (2 Pet. 1:3). We have been given about 1400 pages of instruction, more than enough for the rest of our lives. We have been given the Spirit, who will speak one scripture into our hearts at one time and another scripture at another time. We have access to the throne of grace and the promise of answered prayer (Hebrews 4:16; John 14:13-14). And we have the fellowship of believers (Romans 12:10). We have all we need.

We need not argue over what was in the Savior’s mind when He said, “You are the salt of the earth.” What we need to do is maintain our saltiness. We need the grace and the courage to be distinct from others, to be godly in an ungodly world.

Prayer: Lord, help me to rest in You. Help me to faithfully, morning by morning, come to You for my daily sustenance. Help me to walk through the day with the consciousness of Your presence. And help me to lie down at night with the peace that comes from remaining in Your fellowship and demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit.