You are the salt of the earth. What will you do about it?
Recently a friend of mine, Terese, commented on one of my Facebook posts something to the effect of:
“It’s time to take your salt out of the salt shaker.”
I took that to mean: quit hiding yourself, your God-given gifts and talents, and what you have to contribute to society. Be who God made you to be and share it with the world.
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I’ve been thinking on and off about this for the last few weeks. It really strikes a chord with me and takes me right back to what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
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. Matthew 5:13 NIV
That phrase, “the salt of the earth,” is often used today simply to mean, according to my dictionary app, “a person or group of people of great kindness, reliability, or honesty.” Someone with down to earth integrity.
And I think that’s pretty close to at least part of what Jesus was talking about.
Salt’s many uses in the Bible
In Bible times, and throughout the ancient world, salt was a very important and valuable resource.
It had various uses and metaphorical meanings.
- Salt was connected with the idea of purity and was used in some purification rites
- Salt was used to preserve food, especially meat and fish, but other things as well. Salt prevented food from rotting and decaying
- Salt was used to flavor food
- Salt can also have a destroying effect. Too much salt in the soil will kill or prevent seeds from sprouting and plants from growing
- And salt was used in burnt sacrifices in the Old Testament
- Salt was sometimes used as a means of exchange
- And at times it was considered a healing agent
Salt represents purity and preserving
When Jesus told everyone listening to his Sermon on the Mount, “You are the salt of the earth,” he could have been referring to any one of, or combination of, or all of these uses for salt.
He certainly expected his followers to be pure and live spiritually pure lives, uncontaminated by the influences of materialism in the world.
Jesus knew that by being pure, we would help to preserve not only the good in our lives but in the world as well.
Jesus wanted the way we live our lives to prevent the moral and spiritual decay taking place in society. He wanted us to preserve the pure moral and spiritual standards of following his commandments and teachings.
Think about this when you’re on your way to work or going to some social event. If you have to be in a challenging situation, remember that you are the salt, holding firmly to the high standards of Christlike thinking and living.
Salt enhances the flavor of food and our lives
As a follower of Jesus, not only do you help preserve the good in the world, you bring flavor to everything you do. Salt is a flavor enhancer. It brings out the flavor that’s already there.
Jesus wants us to bring out the hidden flavor of Christliness in our lives. When we hold true to following Jesus’s teachings, we enhance the flavor or meaning of life for ourselves, and for everyone we come in contact with as well.
Salt and destruction?
But what about this idea of salt having a destroying influence? I remember my mom used to kill wild gourd plants, which were invading our property, by chopping the vine away from the roots, then pouring salt on the roots to kill them. It was pretty effective.
The destructive nature of salt is actually found in the Bible in a few places. This verse from Deuteronomy refers to the destruction people open themselves up to when they don’t keep their covenant with God.
The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. Deuteronomy 29:23 NIV
Sounds pretty dismal doesn’t it? Another time, Abimelech, who was a son of Gideon, put salt on the land of a town he conquered.
All that day Abimelek pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it. Judges 9:45 NIV
It would be years before anything would be able to grow in that soil.
Are we supposed to be preservers or destroyers?
Now it may seem like this destruction metaphor might not apply to us as followers of Jesus. Did he want us to be agents of destruction in the world? How could we be preservers and destroyers at the same time?
Well, I don’t know if this is what Jesus was thinking, but what comes to mind is
… the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8 NLT
As Jesus’s followers, we too go about destroying the works of the devil. Paul puts it this way in
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 NIV
When you are the salt of the earth and living a Christlike life, this is like a law of destruction to the darkness, the evil, in the world. Light doesn’t have to fight with the darkness to conquer it, it’s just the nature of light to eradicate the darkness.
Salt doesn’t fight with the plants it kills in the soil. It’s the chemical properties of salt, its nature, that stops plants from growing.
And just so with you and me when we are living salty lives, lives of following Christ bringing flavor and preservation to all we do, this just naturally dissolves materialistic influences in our lives.
Salt and sacrifices
In the Old Testament, when certain sacrifices were made to God, the priests were instructed to sprinkle salt on them.
You are to offer them before the LORD, and the priests are to sprinkle salt on them and sacrifice them as a burnt offering to the LORD. Ezekiel 43:24 NIV
Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings. Leviticus 2:13 NIV
As I said earlier, salt was very valuable. When the priests made an offering to God, adding salt was a way to show the value of their devotion to God.
Now you may be thinking: Hey James, I’m not sure how this applies to me. I don’t make burnt offerings to God.
Well, of course not, but how do you express the value of what you’re doing for God. When you pray, when you worship God, when you sing hymns, when you sacrifice your will to obey God’s will, are these just habitual words and actions, with no liveliness, no flavor, no salt, in them?
Or when you go to church, when you go to work or to school, when you’re with your family, running errands, or at a concert, wherever you are, are you adding salt to your activities, adding the value of your Christlike behavior?
Salt as money?
As I said, salt was a very valuable resource. Pliny the Elder in the first century CE, said Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt, but some historians dispute this. Others claim they were given money to buy salt with, which was called salarium. We get our word salary from it. The point is, salt was valuable and sometimes used as a medium of exchange.
How does that apply to you and me as the salt of the earth?
When Jesus said everyone listening to him was the salt of the earth, he was seeing their value and the contribution they could make to society. Your Christlike approach to life is not measured in monetary value, but is of great spiritual value in the transactions of life.
One time on vacation, I had rented a vehicle large enough for 7 people plus all our luggage. When I got the car from the rental company, it was barely big enough for everyone and could only hold about half the luggage.
I calmly went back to talk to the person at the service desk and explained the situation. She apologized profusely but they had accidentally given my car to someone else and all the large vehicles were already rented and there was nothing available in the size we needed.
A friend of mine who was with me was getting very agitated and I could tell he wanted to shout at her or something like that. I just kept my calm and tried to be as loving and Christlike to her as I could.
Keeping the flavor of Christ in your business dealings
I kept asking questions in a polite and gentle way. In a few minutes, she came up with a solution. We didn’t need the space for the luggage until we left that city in a couple of days for our final destination at a lodge out in the country. She told me to bring back the car she had given me when we were ready to leave town. By then, one of the larger vehicles would have been returned. And she would rent it too me at a huge discount because I had been so nice about the whole situation.
My friend told me later, he was about to yell at her and tell her he wanted to talk to her manager. But he was deeply touched by what he called my Christly touch in dealing with this situation.
This is a small little incident, but it shows the spiritual value you can bring to a business transaction. Your Christlikeness, your spiritual saltiness, can bring peace to a troubled situation, honesty and integrity to an attempted dishonest transaction, and be a blessing to everyone involved.
Salt as a healing agent
Salt is also associated with healing in the Old Testament. I love this story from
One day the leaders of the town of Jericho visited Elisha. “We have a problem, my lord,” they told him. “This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see. But the water is bad, and the land is unproductive.”
Elisha said, “Bring me a new bowl with salt in it.” So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring that supplied the town with water and threw the salt into it. And he said, “This is what the LORD says: I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or infertility.” 2 Kings 2:19-21 NLT
It’s interesting that a little bowl full of salt could heal the waters in the spring, but too much salt could stop crops from growing.
Well, when you think about it, that makes sense. You don’t put a cup of salt on your dinner. It’s too much. All you need is a few shakes from the salt shaker.
All you need is a little salt
And just so, when you share your salt, your Christlikeness, with the world, you don’t dump a lifetime’s supply of inspiration and spiritual understanding on someone. It could overwhelm them. You give them just what they need.
It’s why Jesus wanted us to ask God for our daily bread. He didn’t say to ask God for all the bread you will ever eat, all at one time.
Wherever you go, you are the salt of the earth. You are the healer in the room. Your Christlikeness, your obedience to Jesus’s teachings will always have a healing effect wherever you are.
Can salt lose its flavor?
Once you accept the fact that you are the salt of the earth, it’s time to ponder what Jesus meant when he warned us that if the salt loses its flavor, it’s no good and is thrown out. But here’s the thing. Salt, in its pure form never loses its saltiness. The only way the salt can lose its flavor is for it to be diluted by or contaminated with other things.
Have you ever felt like all the distractions in daily life sometimes dilute your pure desire and efforts to follow Christ? Or have you ever felt other less important priorities take the place of your devotion to Christ? The love for and desire to follow Christ—the salt—is still there, but it’s either diluted or polluted to a lesser or greater degree by the material world’s allurements.
Jesus wants us to keep our salt, the Christly flavor, in our hearts and in our lives, pure and undiluted.
So what’s the solution here? How do we keep our salt, our love for Christ, pure?
Hiding your salt?
Well, some folks take the approach to keep their salt, their Christly light, hid away. They don’t interact with the world. They stay in their own little bubble. They only talk to people who believe in and follow Christ the exact way they do. Then they’ll never be corrupted by outside, worldly influences.
When we were homeschooling our kids, there was a homeschooling group that had some really interesting programs and activities. But when we asked if we could join the group, they had a three page, single spaced document of religious doctrines that you had to agree with 100%. They didn’t want anything to influence their children in a way other than what they believed. And I get that. But we did not join that group.
These parents were trying to protect their children from evil influences, but they were not being the salt of the earth. They were sort of hoarding their salt to themselves.
So, how do we keep our salt from being diluted or corrupted? In a nutshell, keep your eyes on Christ and follow him. He is the shepherd. We are the sheep.
Protecting your salt and using it
Cultivate your relationship with Christ, by obeying Jesus’s teachings and life lessons and examples.
Dig into the Bible instead of just gliding over it. Connect with God prayerfully. Focus less and less on your will, your opinion, your material possessions and accomplishments and more on God’s will and what God is doing in your life and the lives of others.
If you keep your salt to yourself, you may be the salt, but not the salt of the earth. It’s time to take you salt out of the salt shaker.
You may have a huge supply of salt or the fanciest most beautiful salt shaker, but if you leave it in the box on the kitchen shelf or in the salt shaker on the table and never add it to your food while you’re cooking or eating, you’ll never experience the flavor the salt brings out in your food.
You may have an amazing amount of Christly understanding and love in your heart, but if you keep it to yourself, you may be seasoning your own life with Christly behavior, but you’re not letting your salt go out into the world to bless it.
If you’re afraid your salt will be diluted or polluted, you can keep it safe and not share it. Or you can share you salt, share your faith in Christ, widely and let it be a blessing to everyone.
It’s the difference between letting your salt be influenced by the world or influencing the world with your salt.
Take your salt out of the salt shaker
I’ll say this again, if you leave your salt in the salt shaker, it doesn’t do you much good. But when you add it to your food, it brings out the flavor. When you keep your love for Christ to yourself, it actually will do you a lot of good, but if you’re unwilling to share your love for Christ with others in a way they can understand, you’ll miss a lot of blessings that could come your way and for others.
I had a friend years ago, who was very spiritually minded, but she never shared her faith with anyone that I know of. One time she even had a dramatic healing and when her friends asked about it, she didn’t really say anything or share how she had prayed and was healed. Now there may have been more going on than I knew about, but from my perspective this was a wonderful opportunity to shake some salt out of her salt shaker and share the flavor Christ had brought to her life with her friends.
I love what Paul says in Colossians:
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:6 NIV
The word for “conversation” in this verse is the Greek word logos, which means “word.” What if every word that came out of our mouths to everyone we talked to was seasoned with the saltiness, the flavor, that Christ has added to our lives?
Think about that for just a minute.
You are the salt of the earth
Let’s come back to that verse where Jesus says we are the salt of the earth.
Here’s how The Message paraphrases this verse.
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. Matthew 5:13 The Message
When Jesus told his listeners they were the salt of the earth, he was telling them how valuable they were. This is true for you and me as well.
As a follower of Christ keep your salt pure and share it with others.
You can either be influenced by the world or you can influence the world. As salt, you have a powerful opportunity to do just that, to influence the world the way Jesus hoped and prayed you would: to flavor, preserve, heal, and bring value to the world.
It’s time to get your salt out of the salt shaker and be the salt of the earth.
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
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Bible References
Matthew 5:13 NIV
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.
Deuteronomy 29:23 NIV
23 The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it.
Judges 9:45 NIV
45 All that day Abimelek pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it.
1 John 3:8 NLT
8 … the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.
2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 NIV
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Ezekiel 43:24 NIV
24 You are to offer them before the LORD, and the priests are to sprinkle salt on them and sacrifice them as a burnt offering to the LORD.
Leviticus 2:13 NIV
13 Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.
2 Kings 2:19-21 NLT
19 One day the leaders of the town of Jericho visited Elisha. “We have a problem, my lord,” they told him. “This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see. But the water is bad, and the land is unproductive.”
20 Elisha said, “Bring me a new bowl with salt in it.” So they brought it to him.
21 Then he went out to the spring that supplied the town with water and threw the salt into it. And he said, “This is what the LORD says: I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or infertility.”
Colossians 4:6 NIV
6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Matthew 5:13 The Message
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.
