Most teachings we hear on salt come from the gospel of Matthew, which doesn’t clearly define what Jesus means by salt, except that we are the salt of the earth. Therefore, we tend to define it by our own experience of it, a culinary one, with Christians either adding flavor, or used as a preservative for this world.
The Dead Sea
Luke’s gospel is the only gospel where we’re told what Jesus meant by salt, Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 14:34-35)!
If you’ve ever been to Israel and visited the Dead Sea, you get a clear picture of what salt does to an environment. The Dead Sea has a salinity of around 34%, which is about 10 times as salty as the ocean. When salt dries it forms salt crystals and they pile up. In ancient times, salt was scraped up from the shores of the Dead Sea and sold to people throughout the land. It’s not “pure” sodium chloride (NaCl) though, it’s a mixture of various salts, with one of the main ones being potassium chloride, or potash. Potash is the common name given to a group of minerals containing potassium that are typically used in agriculture to help plants grow. If you’re a gardener, you know that every plant needs three kinds of fertilizer. It needs phosphate to develop the roots, nitrates to develop the leaves and potash to develop the flowers and fruit. This made the salt scraped up from the Dead Sea a widely used fertilizer throughout Israel.
The Effect of Salt
Jesus uses the fertilizer visual in Luke’s gospel in two ways:
For the land: as a fertilizer to promote the growth of good things.
For the dunghill: as an agent to inhibit the growth of bad things.
For the land, He’s making a point that you are the fertilizer that is put on the soil to make good things grow and to bring forth fruit. For the dunghill, you are also important. Jesus is not talking about animal manure here, rather human manure. Since there were no toilets in those days, a heap of dirt was usually piled up in the back of a yard where people would go to empty their bowels. By the side of the dirt was a box full of salt from the Dead Sea. A handful would be put on the dirt, which served as a disinfectant to stop the spread of things you didn’t want to grow.
Christians are to be the salt of the soil, but also salt of the dunghill. We are the people who will promote the growing of good things and prevent the growing of bad things. Salt in this way affects its environment simply by being what it is. If we’re going to be salt it’s not going to be because of a lot talking, or even a lot of action, but by being totally different from our environment, so different that we affect it.
It stands to reason then, that each environment requires a certain amount of salt to have an effect. In the kitchen, a sprinkling will do. But as with fertilizer you need a considerable amount. So, the concept of being salt in society demands a certain proportion of that society being Christian, being different, in order to affect it. But if that proportion is locked up in Christian circles and not touching the soil, it is not salt the way Jesus intended it to be. It’s got to be in direct physical contact with the dirt.
But the salt must also be salty. Jesus talked about salt losing its flavor. Salt cannot lose its flavor based on its properties. So, what does Jesus mean? The only way salt can lose its saltiness is by being mixed with other substances. A clever salt dealer would scrape up sand and mix it with salt from the Dead Sea shores. Any housewife who purchased the adulterated salt would throw it out into the street where men would walk it back into the dirt from which is came. That’s the only way salt can lose its flavor, by having too much other stuff mixed in with it.
Jesus uses this powerful illustration to warn believers not to lose the quantity of our influence, nor the quality, otherwise we will find ourselves trampled underfoot by men, good for nothing. Although we are to be “in the world,” we are to be unlike the world in every way.
Take time to ponder the saltiness and effectiveness of your own Christian witness. Are you promoting growth through evangelism and prohibiting the growth and spread of bad things, or have you lost your saltiness?
God Bless You Today,
Carole
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